According to the latest announcement from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the July 2025 edition of "Current Situation of Smart Agriculture" comprehensively presents the current state and prospects of Japan's agricultural digital transformation. Smart agriculture is a new form of agriculture that achieves ultra-labor-saving and high-quality production by utilizing cutting-edge technologies such as robotics, ICT, AI, and IoT. The "Act for Promoting the Use of Smart Agricultural Technologies to Improve Agricultural Productivity," which came into effect in October 2025, significantly strengthened the support system for technology introduction.
In terms of current adoption status, agricultural drones for pesticide spraying are rapidly spreading, with approximately 15,000 units operating as of the end of fiscal 2024. The introduction of autonomous tractors, rice transplanters, and combine harvesters is also progressing, with cases reported of achieving 30-50% reduction in working hours mainly among large-scale farmers. In greenhouse horticulture, environmental control systems and AI-based yield prediction have resulted in cases where yield per unit area improved to 1.5 times that of conventional methods. Furthermore, initiatives to comprehensively utilize integrated information on weather, soil, and market conditions through the agricultural data collaboration platform (WAGRI) are also expanding.
For future development, the Smart Agriculture Innovation Promotion Council (IPCSA) has been established to accelerate technology development and social implementation through industry-academia-government collaboration. Additionally, by fostering agricultural support service providers, environmental improvements are being made to enable small and medium-scale farmers to utilize advanced technologies. The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has set a goal for almost all core farmers to practice data-driven agriculture by 2030 and is promoting the nationwide deployment of smart agriculture.