Located in Southwestern Japan, Ishigaki Island is famous for its emerald sea and amazing nature. Monsoon has been a hard challenge for agriculture here, but, the island now has delicious fresh vegetables and fruits to enjoy the cool climate.
"This is plant factory system for Asian monsoon area, it consists of cultivation houses. They may look ordinary from the outside like normal greenhouses but actually, inside there are many high technology features for environment control. It has also a cloud computer system to make it possible to control it from anywhere through an internet connection," said Yukinori Matsumoto, Panasonic Corporation.
"It is equipped with a real-time monitoring system, CO2, humidity, and light sensors. Also, high-pressure mist for cooling all controlled with the help of a computer," added Yukinori.
Explaining about the cultivation house, Yukinori said, "This is tomato cultivation house, as you can see, they have very beautiful red color and they are high quality called 'Momotaro hope'. We can cultivate 40 tons/10a. Now we are in the cultivation house for strawberries. They need more light but less temperature than tomatoes. We achieve that cool temperature by spraying pressure mist. Also, we have developed a special LED light system for this purpose." A seminar was held to introduce technologies that achieve the cultivation of Japanese fresh fruits and vegetables in hot and humid areas all year round by using a cloud-based integrated environmental control system. And Southeast Asian county representatives attended and later joined the field trip, informed Yukinori.
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