Japan's quantum leap in robotics - robofarm to produce 30,000 heads of lettuce daily

Japan is known for thinking out of the box and have created a robofarm where robots would grow spinach at the rte of 30,000 heads daily with effect from 2017. It will be staffed with only robots!! Each and every process would be automated and the team of robots is expected to drastically chop personnel costs by about half and decrease energy expenses by one third.
This has bee reported in dailymail.co.uk dated 2 February 2016.

The group named Spread is of the opinion that this revolutionary move will also allow its group of human farmers to focus on developing sustainable farming methods and learn how to produce better quality vegetables.
The futuristic factory is proposed to be built at Kansai Science City in Kizugawa, Kyoto Japan by the middle of 2017. Spread already has an indoor plant named the Kameoka Plant and the robofarm will be an upgrade to the the Kameoka Plant which produces 21,000 heads of lettuce on a daily basis using a small human staff.
The proposed farm, measuring about 4,400 square metres (47,300 square feet), will have floor-to-ceiling shelves where the produce is grown. The planting of seeds would be done by humans people, but the rest of the process, including harvesting, will be done (by industrial robots).
The pesticide-free lettuce will have more beta carotene than other farm-grown lettuce.
Incidentally, Spread uses vertical farming, which is a method of urban agriculture that grows produce in vertical stacks indoors and uses LED light. This technique increases production, reduces waste and eliminates runoff from toxic chemicals such as pesticides.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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