“Plant Factory” Starts Operation in Kurume
The Kyushu/Okinawa Agriculture Research Center of the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization has begun operation of what they are calling a “plant factory” in Kurume, Fukuoka Prefecture. There are six of these facilities nationwide funded by the Agriculture Ministry, and this is the only one in Kyushu. It will conduct trials to determine the optimum growing environment and planting density for crops. They also intend to cultivate strawberries with the objective of increasing crop volume by 2.5 times while cutting production costs by 30%.