9 Years on: Fukushima taps info tech for farming revival

March 9, 2020

Fukushima--Fukushima Prefecture is developing labor-saving farming techniques by utilizing information technology with cooperation from the corporate and academic sectors, aiming to revive farming in former nuclear evacuation zones.

Evacuation zones were designated in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear accident triggered by the March 11, 2011, massive earthquake and tsunami, leading to sharp falls in the farming population in affected areas.

In areas where the designation has been removed, some farmers are now using IT equipment such as a system to monitor cattle remotely and a new unmanned tractor.

The national government is pinning hopes on the farming initiative in Fukushima, at a time when Japan's farming sector is struggling to keep labor against the backdrop of the country's graying population.

In the Fukushima village of Iitate, "wagyu" beef cattle farmer Ichiro Sato, 58, introduced at his farm IT devices leased from the prefectural government for a demonstration experiment in June 2018, after the central government partially lifted its evacuation order for the village in March 2017.

At his farm, the cattle barn is equipped with a thermography device to check the body temperatures of cattle, a monitoring camera and other equipment, while censors to measure the volume of physical activity are attached to the necks of cattle.

On his tablet computer and smartphone, Sato checks data from these IT devices. The data are managed in an integrated way by a computer system developed by the Fukushima prefectural government.

"This is handy," said Sato, also a member of the village's assembly. The IT equipment "saves labor especially during the mating season and at times of births," he said.

The prefecture-developed system sends a notice to Sato when it finds, by analyzing cow activity data, that a cow is likely to give birth soon.

Sato said that data stored in the system are also useful when training new cattle farmers.

The Fukushima prefectural government is also developing an unmanned tractor that tends the land and scatters fertilizers and seeds while receiving positional data from the Global Positioning System. The unmanned machine is expected to improve work efficiency by around 20 to 40 pct.

Furthermore, the prefecture is testing the use of high-resolution satellite images to monitor the growth of rice plants and detect outbreaks of disease and pests.

Other equipment developed by the prefecture includes a robot with artificial intelligence that harvests broccoli after calculating the right time to do this, by analyzing image data.

Fukushima is "advanced in utilizing IT and AI to address challenges from labor shortages," a farm ministry official said. Jiji Press