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Robotics injects new life into Japan's aging agricultural workforce

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By Hayato Ishii

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I think you'll find the majority of Japan's "aging" farmers have small plots where use of mechanization is uneconomical. So while automation is great and the way forward, it will turn these aging farmers into landlords who lease their land to a farming business who can achieve the economies of scale required to afford this cutting edge technology. This already happening, and more tech will just speed it up.

My point here is that unless some very cheap, small scale technology can be introduced, Japan's "aging farmers" are doomed anyway. The government or general population should not be concerned with finding young people to take over two or three hectare-sized farms (very common in Japan) from their elderly operators because farms of that scale are unsustainable. They have only made it this far thanks to subsidies and the urban poor paying high prices for produce.

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