NEC and Kagome contribute to the sustainability of
farming through enhancing the CropScope agricultural ICT platform
NEC announced
the enhancement of CropScope, its agricultural ICT platform, which NEC has been
operating jointly with Kagome Co, Ltd. since April 2020. New functions to
improve farming have been added to the strengthened platform, and stable yields
have already been achieved through verification in a variety of environments.
As a result, NEC expects to expand the number of new contracts for the
platform, and to contribute to the achievement of more sustainable farming by
resolving challenging farming issues.
CropScope consists of a service that uses sensors and satellite photographs to
visualize the growth status of tomatoes and the condition of soils, as well as
a service that provides farming advice using artificial intelligence (AI). The
AI capitalizes on a wealth of know-how from experienced cultivators, enabling
it to provide guidance on the optimum amount of water, fertilizer and the best
time to apply them. This platform enables tomato producers, regardless of skill
level, to stabilize their harvests and reduce cultivation costs, while
implementing environmentally friendly farming.
In addition, the platform’s accumulation of farming knowledge from experienced
workers enables know-how to be passed down, and successful farming production
from experienced cultivators to be duplicated, thereby expanding the areas of
production and providing support for the training of new farmers. Moreover, the
operators and managers of processed tomato facilities can comprehensively
understand the growth of tomatoes in both their own soils and the soils of
contracted farmers, making it possible to optimize harvesting and improve
productivity based on objective data.
Key enhancements to CropScope are as follows:
- Strengthening the versatility of AI farming advice
services
In 2020, NEC and Kagome conducted demonstration tests of CropScope in
collaboration with an Australia-based Kagome subsidiary, KAGOME Australia
Pty Ltd. Since the cultivation requirements for Australia differed from
markets where CropScope had been applied in the past, such as Portugal,
the platform gained important knowledge on soils, crop breeds, and
irrigation facilities, including simulations on the water content of soils
in the underlying irrigation system, recording data from trained
cultivators and enhancing analytical methods. This has enabled the
platform to deliver the same harvest capacity as trained cultivators in a
variety of environments, ranging from the Northern Hemisphere to the
Southern Hemisphere.
- Improve the convenience of applications based on user
feedback
Based on the feedback of large-scale users of CropScope worldwide, NEC has
improved the usability of applications by including the ability to
identify field abnormalities, such as changes in the soil and water
content, the ability to determine farming priorities for individual
fields, expressing data in a simple manner, and the ability to analyze
accumulated data between fields in order to improve farming methods.
Going forward, the two companies aim
to accelerate the growth of this business by strengthening proposals for
processed tomato manufacturers, particularly in Europe and the Americas, and
for tomato production companies.
"We aim to realize environmentally friendly and highly profitable farming
in the cultivation of tomatoes for processing globally. Since 2020, we have
been expanding the AI farming support tool CropScope, which we jointly
developed using NEC's cutting-edge technologies. This tool was renewed in April
2021 to strengthen our ability to provide solutions. In addition, we will
accelerate the resolution of the issues that producers face in the farming
field, and aim to realize sustainable farming," said Kengo Nakata, General
Manager, Smart Agri Division, Kagome.
"In its strategic partnership with Kagome, NEC has been expanding
digitization in the tomato market. At the same time, NEC has responded to the
challenges faced by its production sites by enhancing the versatility of
farming advice utilizing AI, which is NEC's specialty, and strengthening its
‘CropScope’ platform. NEC will continue to develop and provide solutions that
contribute to the cultivation of a wide range of crops, helping to overcome
social issues, climate change and food safety concerns, while creating
sustainable farming experiences," said Teruyuki Nakajima, Executive Vice
President and General Manager, Corporate Business Development Division, NEC
Corporation.
Source: NEC media announcement
