2019.08.22
Demonstration Tests of "Farming Support Services" in BLOF(R) Theory
- Toward the spread of organic cultivation technologies to achieve high quality and high yield -
JOAA Co., Ltd. (Head office: Ina City, Nagano Prefecture, President: Masaaki Koiwai, hereinafter JOAA), NTT COMWARE CORPORATION (Head office: Minato-ku, Tokyo, President: Satoshi Kurishima, hereinafter NTT COMWARE) started demonstration tests of "BLOF Farming Support Services" (hereinafter "this Service") early August 2019.
Among organic farming projects, we aim for the first practical use of the BLOF Theory-based services (Bio Logical Farming), which enable farmers to implement the BLOF theory without advanced expertise or skills. This is also for further promotion of the theory to realize high quality and high yield based on scientific data.
Prior to providing the Service, we plan to exhibit the "BLOF Farming Support Services" at "6th International Next Generation Agriculture Expo" in October 2019.
1. Background of the demonstration experiment
Agriculture in Japan is susceptible to impacts from natural disasters and wildlife damage and there are social issues such as "low profitability", "unstable profits" and "shortage of successors". "Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)" adopted at the United Nations Summit in September 2015, the productivity and income increase of small-scale food producers is one of the important targets to be solved globally.Meanwhile, the demand for organic crops from consumers has increased due to the recent trend of healthy and eco-friendly lifestyles, and the number of people who intend to start organic farming and existing farmers who want to start organic farming are increasing. The BLOF theory, one of the organic cultivation methods, is for stable production of high-quality and high-yield crops by conducting scientific farming in three fields: amino acids, minerals, and soil. As the result, farmers who have successfully practiced the BLOF theory are successful in improving their income. However, as the BLOF theory requires advanced expertise and skills, it is difficult to implement without sufficient support from experts. In particular, the issue is its complicated calculations and adjustments required for the fertilization design process.
Therefore, JOAA, which has know-how in the BLOF theory production, education and theory, and NTT COMWARE, working on collaborative creation of business with various industries, start collaboration for farmers to implement the BLOF theory without advanced expertise and skills. We aim to promote the BLOF theory and solve social issues in agriculture by providing the services that can easily be adaptable.
2. Outline of "BLOF Farming Support Service"
"BLOF Farming Support Service" is a system to enable even beginners without special knowledge or skills to easily implement the BLOF theory compared to the conventional systems. This theory especially reduces the burden on farmers and instructors*1) by using the system for fertilizer design that requires complicated calculations and adjustments as well as for field management that has been implemented by individuals. Farmers can easily perform fertilization design and field management and refer advices from the instructor on the system. The instructor is also able to see the field information and fertilization design results of the designated farmers on the system to provide them with farming guidance or advisory.*1) Those who provide instructions to farmers on the cultivation techniques and know-how for BLOF theory practice.
[Outline of the functions]
- Fertilization design - The function is to calculate the type and amount of fertilizer as well as to formulate a fertilization plan in order to create a field with the optimum content for the soil to grow crops in the fertilization design process, one of the most important processes of the BLOF theory.
- Field management - The function is to manage the basic information of each field (including crops, characteristics of the fields and personnel information) and the yield.
- Instructor refers to the results of fertilization design of the target farmers and provides advisory. It enables the farmers and the instructor to communicate each other.
3. Outline of the demonstration test
(1) PeriodEarly August 2019 to late October 2019
(2) Target
Participants: 10 farmers in Okinawa Prefecture who practice the BLOF theory
Target crop: Tomato, bitter gourd, mango, passion fruit, etc.
(3) Details of the test
The BLOF farmers and JOAA instructors produce crops in collaboration using this Service to verify the fertilization design and field management functions of this Service.
[Key items for verification]
- The test is to compare conventional manual fertilization design processes and the Service in terms of working hours, accuracy of fertilization design and operability of the screens when using this Service.
- Verification of the length of time and level of instructors when using this Service
Figure 1. The workflow of the demonstration test
4. Roles of participating companies and organizations
(1) JOAA- Provide technologies and know-how related to the BLOF theory
- Coordination of farmers and support for them to use the Service
(2) NTT COMWARE
- Development and provision of this Service and verification of its effectiveness
5. Future scenario
We aim to start the Service in March 2020 for agricultural cooperatives, applicants for farming, and farmers nationwide. The content of the Service is considered through a design thinking process*2) to conduct interviews with testers and conduct field studies. For the development of this system, the Agile methodology is applied to respond to the needs of the farmers who participate in the test and instructors in a flexible manner since the method is efficient and flexible to add-on the functions while making improvements repeatedly.Furthermore, various data such as weather and satellite photographs will be used to optimize and enhance the fertilization design according to the climate and topography in the future. In addition to "field management", we strive to provide efficient services to consistently support the flows of agriculture such as "sales and distribution" as well as "education". JOAA and NTT COMWARE collaborate on further dissemination of the BLOF theory in order to contribute to the promotion of "sustainable agriculture". We also aim to contribute to revitalization of local businesses and improvement of productivity in the primary industry in collaboration with NTT DOCOMO, INC. (Head office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, President: Kazuhiro Yoshizawa) who has been aiming for providing better services to match farmers and consumers.
* 2) The user-oriented concept to find and solve problems efficiently from the user situations, requests and complains.
* "BLOF" is a registered trademark of Japan Bio Farm Co., Ltd.
* Other company names and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of each company.
