The Tokyo Company Helping to Solve Japan's Farming Crisis

The triple whammy of urbanization, a low birth rate, and an aging population has been emptying out Japan’s rural areas, including its farms. As the country’s farmers retire, few of the next generation are interested in tending the crops, preferring instead to head to cities for employment. The result: Japan’s uncultivated farmland has almost doubled over the past 20 years. The country is already reliant on food imports, with about 60 percent of its food coming from other nations. If the trend continues, this reliance could intensify.

The Japanese government in recent years has worked to encourage young people to farm, such as through 2009’s Rural Labor Squad, which put unemployed and underemployed youth to work on farms. However, one of the government’s latest projects signals a turn toward technology to solve the problem. The plan aims to increase farms’ use of automated machines and robots. The concept in part focuses on helping aging farmers as they become less physically able to shoulder the work themselves. It could also establish a new way of farming that decreases the need for human labor.