Japanese firm to open world’s first robot-run farm - Spread says it will open the fully automated farm with robots handling almost every step of the process

A Japanese company is to open the world’s first “robot farm”, as agriculture joins other sectors of the economy in attempting to fill labour shortages created by the country’s rapidly ageing population.

Spread, a vegetable producer, said industrial robots would carry out all but one of the tasks needed to grow the tens of thousands of lettuces it produces each day at its vast indoor farm in Kameoka, Kyoto prefecture, starting from mid-2017.

The robots will do everything from re-planting young seedlings to watering, trimming and harvesting crops.

The innovation will boost production from 21,000 lettuces a day to 50,000 a day, the firm said, adding that it planned to raise that figure to half a million lettuces daily within five years .... http://www.newsforage.com