Technology:
NTT DoCoMo is
developing a system to estimate shipments and sales of vegetables in alliance
with Hitachi East Japan Solutions. The system is designed to allow farmers to
judge the most suitable shipping date using information on the growing
condition of agricultural products and sales forecast made by retailers. They
have already started the substantiative experiment in the Tohoku district with
the cooperation from local farmers. They provided about 15 farmers with tablet
PCs, and the farmers enter the growing conditions of vegetables like spinach.
Cloud computing is
used to manage the information entered by the farmers. The wholesale market
analyzes yields and sales trends of retailers including supermarkets, and the
analysis is transmitted to the farmers to help them work out shipping plans in
accordance with change of the demand. In the Shikoku district, NTT DoCoMo has
already started to operate a system that farmers can get orders for their
agricultural products via their smartphones and tablet PCs in alliance with a
local third-sector company. A research company predicts that the IT-supported
agriculture market will grow from 6 billion yen in 2010 to 60 billion yen in
2020.
The concept of NTT
DoCoMo’s agriculture support system
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