Commercialization of "plant factory".

The 20th, Sharp has announced that it embark on the business of cultivating agricultural products by adjusting an artificial light and temperature of the "plant factory". It has grown strawberry experimentally in Dubai United Arab Emirates from July, with the aim of selling the 2015 fiscal year.
The plant factory, domestic and foreign companies have entered one after another. However, leafy vegetables such as lettuce, mainly in strawberry unusual.
Many desert, in the Middle East that are not suitable for the cultivation of agricultural products, Japan strawberries strong sweetness is popular around the wealthy. However, the benefits of transport is difficult for perishable and local production in the plant factory that big.
From '09, Sharp has started experimenting cultivation of strawberries in collaboration with Osaka Prefecture University, already, that they can harvest the strawberry quality no different from domestic products on the market in Japan. First, in facilities built in the warehouse of the company in Dubai, we have grown experimentally seedlings brought from Japan, to discern if you can mass production in the local environment this time.

"Plant factory" is it might become as lined where cultivation is difficult environmentally.


シャープは２０日、光や温度を人工的に調節して農産物を栽培する「植物工場」の事業化に乗り出すと発表した。７月からアラブ首長国連邦のドバイで実験的にイチゴを栽培しており、２０１５年度の販売を目指す。
植物工場には、国内外の企業が相次いで参入している。ただ、レタスなどの葉物野菜が中心で、イチゴは珍しい。
　砂漠が多く、農産物の栽培に向かない中東では、富裕層を中心に甘みの強い日本産イチゴが人気だ。しかし、傷みやすいため輸送が難しく、植物工場で現地生産するメリットは大きいという。
　シャープは０９年から、大阪府立大学と共同でイチゴの実験栽培を始めており、国内ではすでに、市販の国産品と変わらない品質のイチゴを収穫できているという。今回はまず、ドバイにある自社の倉庫内に建てた施設で、日本から持ち込んだ苗を実験的に育てており、現地の環境でも大量生産できるか見定める。
　環境的に栽培が難しい場所に「植物工場」が立ち並ぶようになるのかもしれませんね。