The plant factory is a facility that aids the steady production of high-quality vegetables all year round by artificially controlling the cultivation environment (e.g., light, temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide concentration, and culture solution), allowing growers to plan production.
By controlling the internal environment, plant factories can produce vegetables about two to four times faster than by typical outdoor cultivation. In addition, as multiple cultivation shelves (a multi-shelf system) are used, the mass production of vegetables in a small space is facilitated.
About 50 plant factories currently operate across Japan, growing lettuce, herbs, tomatoes, strawberries, and so on. Actions for large-scale production and entry into the market are already being implemented.
This involves not only setting up the business in Japan, but also developing this in other countries such as Japanese manufacture, which has been starting to develop the plant factories by aiming at running business in the Middle East region.
With the aim of tripling the number of Plant Factories in the next three years, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) is taking various assistance measures in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF).
