Spread

A factory in Japan will be the first fully robot-run farm, with a team of automated systems handling every step of the farming process from watering seeds to harvesting crops.

The robots will also monitor levels of carbon dioxide in the air and adjust lighting and heat to optimise growth.


Spread, which has headquarters in Kyoto, says the new system will increase its productivity by over 25 percent, as well as cut costs for consumers. It will be part of a large complex that will cost over £10million to research, develop and build.

The system will be 'vertical' -- where food is produced in vertically stacked layers. Controlling light, environment and fertilisation of the food, food produced in vertical farms is not susceptible to changes in weather and environmental conditions, and can be better monitored for disease.

The only part of the process requiring human input is seeding. "Seed planting will be done by people, but the rest of the process, including harvesting, will be done by industrial robots," said a spokesperson for the company. "It will cut personnel costs by around half and knock energy expenses down by a third".

It's not the first robotic system put into place in Japan -- Pepper, a WiFi enabled emotion-reading humanoid robot, already operates self-service kiosks and serves customers in SoftBank mobile phone stores in the country.

The new system will be put into place in 2017, and will apparently produce over 30,000 heads of lettuce a day -- a figure they hope will increase to half a million within five years.