世界中で植物工場を建設する動きが広がっている。引用した文献は、デンマークとの技術提携により、台湾にその動きが波及しているという内容である。デンマーク、オランダ、ドイツをはじめとして、園芸王国でもある北ヨーロッパの国々が、この分野では先端を走っている。20年前はこの分野で日本が最先端を走っていた。いまや周回遅れで、そろそろ後ろからついて行きそうな気配がする。
オリジナルの記事は、『台湾ビジネス・トピックス』という経済誌に載った「垂直農法が台湾にも進出」というタイトル記事であある。台湾の植物工場は規模が大きいこと以外に、内容的には特段注目に値すると言うわけではない。ただし、少しだけ気になる点を挙げるとすれば、台湾は半導体（デジタルのコメ）を製造しているIT先進国であることである。
今回のコロナ対応でも、IT分野のリーダーがデータとモデルを駆使して、新型コロナの感染を防止することに成功している。植物工場の立地には、「インファーム」（ドイツ）のような都市型立地（Urban Location）と、「プレンティ」（米国）や「ファームシップ」（日本）のような田舎立地（Rural Location）がある。
いずれにしても、栽培のコントロールに使用するソフトウエアと、データ分析ツールが効率化の肝になる。となると、デンマーク（先端的な野菜栽培技術）と台湾（ITインフラをコントロールするハードの生産とソフトの技術）の組み合わせは注目に値する。たとえば、日本最大規模の岡山の植物工場（SARA）では、温室と制御ソフトはオランダ製だが、学習モデルを進化させるためのデータ蓄積については、日本を含む世界４か国（日蘭仏豪）で共同体制をとっている。
先端的な農業分野である「垂直農法」（Vertical Farming）では、先進的な栽培技術の適用が大事である。しかし、より決定的なのは、①栽培する作物の選択（品目と品種の選択）と、②大規模な先行投資による経験曲線を利用した低コスト生産（生産性と品質の向上）がポイントになる。
これを経営戦略の文脈で表現すれば、③日進月歩の栽培技術の進歩に乗り遅れないことと、④必要な資金調達のチャンスを確保できるかどうかに、ビジネスの勝算はかかっていると言える。新しく誕生しつつある垂直農業の事業分野は、「AgriTech」（先端農業技術）の一部であるという言い方もできる。しかし、ここは、従来からあるくくりでの農業分野には属すると考えないほうがよいと筆者は考える。
この分野は、明らかに「データ情報技術の応用分野」と理解した方がよいだろう。もちろん植物生理学と栽培技術をベースにはしているが、本質はデータ蓄積（計測）による農産品の栽培（プロセス管理）である。それに加えて、植物工場の運営（学習プロセス）の改善作業の効率の良し悪しが、ごく短期間で事業の優劣を決してしまう。
これまでの牧歌的な農業分野にはなかった、「技術と資金と時間との壮絶な闘い」になると考えらえる。
昨日は、友人たちが事業を運営しているインファーム（日本法人）の最新動向を紹介した。そんなことを考えながら、以下の記事を読むと、日本のポジションが心配になって仕方がない。ふと、(株)アイリスオーヤマの大山健太郎会長さんなど、この分野に参入する起業家としては最適かな？などと考えてしまう。
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”Vertical farming takes root in Taiwan”
07-02-2021 15:55 | Taiwan Business Topics
Taiwan is uniquely placed to benefit from the application of information technology to agriculture, enabling it to help provide food for an expanding global population.
After becoming a world leader in semiconductors and other electronic products, Taiwan is now looking to smart agriculture as its next vine to climb. The island aims to supply much of the world’s fruit and vegetables within the next 30 years.
This might seem rather unlikely until you consider that the future of farming is not land and labor but factories and robots. Furthermore, Taiwan already possesses in abundance the tools that tomorrow’s smart farmers will use, including solar and advanced light technology, chemicals, gene editing, drones, smart sensors, software, algorithms, data mining, and big data.
Many of these technologies are being put to use in a glittering new 14-story vertical farm at Copenhagen Markets in Denmark’s capital. The first phase of construction of the 7,000-square-meter facility finished in early December. It is one of Europe’s biggest and most efficient vertical farms and was built using a blueprint of patented technologies from Taiwan’s YesHealth Group.
The result of a partnership between YesHealth and Danish agritech startup Nordic Harvest, the farm looks like a fancy warehouse from the outside. The interior is fitted with rows upon rows and columns upon columns of trays containing leafy greens, growing under an intense battery of more than 20,000 smart LED lights. The plants are tended by engineers in lab coats and guided by software that processes over 5,000 individual data points to optimize plant health.
Photo ＜＜Rows of fresh produce grow under batteries of LED lights at iFarm. Photo: Jules Quartly＞＞
The LEDs provide variable spectrum light for 100 different kinds of plants, nanobubble hydroponics oxygenate the roots and inhibit bacterial growth, and liquid microbial fertilizers derived from oyster shells, brown sugar, and soy milk provide essential nutrients for plants and soil. Even the music played to the plants is science-infused, with classical or light jazz music ranging between 115 and 250 Hertz seeming to work best.
Production at the new vertical farm is set to begin in the new year and will scale up to around 3,000 kilograms of leafy vegetables per day by the end of 2021, equating to approximately 1,000 tons of greens annually. Crucially, unlike most farms, these figures are close to guaranteed since production is not at the mercy of climate, the weather, pests and disease, pesticide residue, nitrate levels, or hundreds of other variables that affect traditional farming.
According to Jesper Hansen, YesHealth Group’s Chief Communications Officer, the partnership with Nordic Harvest has been a productive one so far. It took just five months to install the farm and all the produce is pre-sold to ensure the operation is profitable by Q3 of 2021.
“This collaboration is just the start of a long-term journey together,” Hansen said in an email from Denmark. He notes that the two partners plan to expand to other Scandinavian countries over the next several years.
Hansen credits Taiwan for its efficient development of the technology and know-how to reproduce vertical farms all over the world and calls the Danish development “a crucial milestone in our international expansion.” He adds that the company is eyeing new partners in Europe, Asia, and the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region.
YesHealth is the brainchild of serial tech entrepreneur Winston Tsai, who started an LCD screen company at age 21. His “eureka moment” came after being diagnosed with liver cancer and partly linking his illness to pollution in foods. After recovering, he made it his mission to produce affordable, pesticide-free produce by harnessing the power of technology.
He founded YesHealth Agri-Biotechnology Co. Ltd. in 2011 and six years later established YesHealth iFarm in Taoyuan’s Luzhu District. The iFarm cultivates an ever-expanding range of leafy vegetables and herbs in a 2,500-square-meter warehouse factory. It produces 1,500 kilograms of leafy greens per day, a yield which the company says is 100 times more efficient than a traditional farm using the same space and requires only 10% as much water. In addition, YesHealth has a farm in China’s Shenzhen, which harvests up to 2,500 kilograms per day.
YesHealth’s products are sold to major retailers both in Taiwan and abroad, including restaurants, hotels, and airports. Its stated aim is to supply a total of 7,000 kilograms of leafy greens per day worldwide in 2021.
Poto: ＜＜Diners enjoy a meal at iFarm’s restaurant, which overlooks the vertical farm. Photo: Jules Quartly＞＞
Having sampled the produce at the iFarm, I can confirm the arugula grown there is as tasty as any I have tried, while the lettuce and leguminous alfalfa is a perfectly clean, green, and crunchy eating experience – the result, I was informed, of an optimal growing environment and harvesting at exactly the right time.
In a sense, it’s back to the future for Taiwan, which had a largely agricultural economy up until the 1950s. Agriculture was one of the pillars supporting the nation’s economic miracle after World War II. With the help of mechanization and productivity gains, agricultural production at that time contributed around a third of Taiwan’s GDP.
In more recent times it has accounted for just 1.8-1.9% of GDP. That greatly reduced figure, which includes animal husbandry, fishing, and forestry, is not due to a decline in agricultural output per se, so much as the growth in manufacturing and the emergence of a pervasive service sector.
Taiwan has a wide range of rich, often volcanic soils that are exceptionally fertile, along with a subtropical climate that provides plentiful sun and rain. It is known as the “Fruit Kingdom” because of the quality of its fruit, with dozens of varieties ranging from bananas and papayas to wax apples and guavas. More than 100 kinds of vegetables grow all year round.
On the other hand, Taiwan’s mainly mountainous geography means just 25% of the land is suitable for farming. Meanwhile, climate change is affecting agricultural production by increasing summer temperatures and making rainfall more unpredictable. At the same time, considerable soil erosion, acidification, contamination by chemicals and heavy metals, and strong pesticide use have diminished soil quality over the last 50 years.
Furthermore, the proportion of Taiwanese involved in farming has rapidly declined, from 37% of the population in the early 1970s to the current 15% or less, according to the Yearbook of the Republic of China. Not only is the farming population declining, it’s aging as well.
Those factors may not pose as much of an issue, however, since the old model of agriculture is being disrupted so dramatically that even economies of scale are being upended. Given the large size and advanced technology of the U.S., it may come as no surprise that it is the world’s biggest exporter of food as measured by value. Second on the list, however, is the Netherlands, which has just 0.045% the area of the U.S.
According to a National Geographic report in September 2017, the Netherlands’ achievement can be attributed to the work coming out of Wageningen University & Research, 80 kilometers from Amsterdam in the heart of Food Valley – the world’s agricultural equivalent of Silicon Valley in California. The university strives to come up with ways to increase yields and sustainability, and then to disseminate that knowledge.
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Photo: Exposed root system for hydroponically grown plants at YesHealth’s iFarm in Taoyuan. Credit: Jules Quartly
