Japan: Why Fujitsu grows lettuce in Fukushima
In the very formal setting of a Japanese conference, Yamamoto raised eyebrows by grabbing a piece beautiful lettuce, unwrapping it and starting to eat, saying that it was delicious. The point was that Fujitsu sees agricultural technology as a serious opportunity.
“This is a way to prove that we are seriously committed in agricultural solutions. Not only in Japan, but worldwide,” he said. “It is an industry where people still base their work in their knowledge, sensitivity and intuition. However, more countries, like the Netherlands, for example, are applying ICT to agriculture in an amazing way. The developed countries are joining this trend.”
Fujitsu itself took the challenge to grow “nerd” lettuces, with the support of sensors and cloud computing, said Yamamoto: “Basically, the message is that Fujitsu, an ICT company, managed to produce high quality lettuce. So imagine what a agricultural company can do to make its business profitable with ICT applied to this industry.”
Fujitsu now takes orders for lettuces produced in the same absolutely sterile facilities it has also used to manufacture mobile chips and other electronic products. These are the first in the company’s “Kirei Yasai” (clean vegetables) line.
Ironically, the factory is in Fukushima, the city made famous by the nuclear accident in which an earthquake and tsunami compromised reactor cooling systems, and the Government declared a level seven emergency, a level only previously applied in the Chernobyl disaster.
The vegetables are produced in around 2000 square metres, at Aizu Wakamatsu, Fukushima, in Northern Japan. Fujitsu is proud of their low potassium – around 100 micrograms of potassium per 100 grams, according to Fujitsu, below the normal value of 490 micrograms.
This is important for people with chronic kidney diseases, who have to limit potassium intake due to loss of kidney function, which limits their options to eat raw vegetables. Fujitsu believes that its low potassium lettuce is tasty enough and considers medical facilities as its potential first customers.
Each 90 gram pack will cost be around $4.90 dollars, twice the price of normal lettuces in Japanese supermarkets, but… These products were produced with the help of semiconductors and cloud computing, and do not need to be washed before consumption.
A cloud platform decides the best atmospheric conditions, like temperature and humidity, as well as levels of fertilization, and sensors along the lettuce rows collect the data on how the product is growing. The algorithms analyse the numbers and recommend the best time for harvest.
Source: techweekeurope.co.uk