Market Overview

The smart agriculture market in Japan for FY2023 based on the sales at businesses is estimated to reach 32,299 million yen, 106.7% on YoY.

Continuing to widespread in FY2023 are smart water management systems that manage water for arable land from remote places, smart rice planting systems available for variable fertilization that enable to reduce fertilizer application in the situation of soaring chemical fertilizer prices, and remote sensing systems that can create a crop growth map to grasp any changes in the cultivation environments. By connecting a crop growth map to the variable fertilizer application system, fertilizers are sprayed only at the spots where the crop growth are slow, which can solve the issue of varying growth speed, while reducing labor and extra fertilizers.

Noteworthy Topics

Expectations for Smart Agriculture Technology to Quantify Greenhouse Gas Reductions

J-Credit Scheme is a carbon-credit system in which the government certifies the amounts of CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions that are reduced or removed through efforts to save energy, introduce renewable energy facilities, manage forests, etc. The “Rice-Paddy Methane Reduction Project” has been approved by J-Credit Scheme as a new methodology of reducing methane emissions from rice paddy by prolonging mid-season drainage periods. Hereafter, the utilization of the credit for activating greenhouse gas reductions is expected.

In addition, smart agriculture that quantifies greenhouse gas emissions is expected to spread under J-Credit Scheme. Conventional measuring methods have had difficulties in deriving the values that can be used as the basis for CO2 reductions and in less real-time.

Future Outlook

The domestic smart agriculture market size is projected to expand to 70,880 million yen by FY2029.

In addition to the "Agricultural Data Linkage Infrastructure (WAGRI)" and "Agricultural Machinery Open API," which enable ICT manufacturers and manufacturers of agricultural machinery and materials to collaborate, share, and utilize various data, the operation of a smart food chain platform called “ukabis”, linked from production to midstream (distribution and processing) and downstream (retail and sales) has started, which is expected to secure safety of food through tracability, match supply and demand, and reduce food losses. Further data sharing and linkage is expected to progress in the future.

Furthermore, upgrading of 5G telecommunication environment and expansion of the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) to eleven satellites are projected to make high-precision images and positioning information to be available, facilitating smart farming as a whole to further expand and widespread, including cultivation support as well as precision farming such as robotic farm machines and remote sensing systems.

Research Outline