NEC and Kagome contribute to the sustainability of agriculture by enhancing the CropScope agricultural ICT platform

Tokyo, June 7, 2021-(JCN News Line)-NEC Corporation (Tokyo Stock Exchange code: 6701) today announced the enhancement of its agricultural ICT platform CropScope. Starting from April 2020, NEC and Kagome Co, Ltd. will work together Operate the platform. The enhanced platform adds improved farming, and through various environmental verifications, stable yields have been achieved. Therefore, NEC hopes to increase the number of new contracts on the platform and contribute to the realization of more sustainable agriculture by solving challenging agricultural issues.

CropScope includes a service that uses sensors and satellite photos to visualize tomato growth and soil conditions, and a service that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to provide agricultural advice. Artificial intelligence uses the wealth of expertise of experienced cultivators to enable them to provide guidance on the optimal amount of water, fertilizer amount, and optimal application time. This platform enables tomato producers to stabilize harvests and reduce planting costs regardless of their technical level, while implementing environmentally friendly agriculture.

In addition, the platform accumulates the farming knowledge of experienced workers, which can inherit the technology and replicate the successful farming of experienced farmers, thereby expanding the field of production and providing support for the training of new farmers. In addition, operators and managers of tomato processing facilities can have a comprehensive understanding of the growth of tomatoes in their own soil and the soil of contracted farmers, so that they can optimize harvest and increase productivity based on objective data.

The main enhancements of CropScope are as follows:

1. Strengthen the versatility of artificial intelligence agricultural consulting services
In 2020, NEC and Kagome cooperated with Kagome Australia Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of Kagome Australia, to conduct a demonstration test of CropScope. Since Australia’s planting requirements are different from those in markets where CropScope has been applied in the past (such as Portugal), the platform has acquired important knowledge about soil, crop varieties and irrigation facilities, including simulating the soil moisture content in the basic irrigation system, and records from well-trained Data from farmers and improve analysis methods. This enables the platform to provide the same harvesting capabilities as well-trained cultivators in a variety of environments from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere.

2. Improve the convenience of the application based on user feedback
Based on feedback from large global users of CropScope, NEC has improved the usability of the application, including the ability to identify field anomalies, such as changes in soil and water content, the ability to prioritize the cultivation of individual fields, express the ability to obtain data in a simple manner, and Analyze accumulated field data to improve the ability of farming methods.

Looking ahead, the two companies aim to accelerate the growth of the business by strengthening their recommendations to processing tomato manufacturers (especially in Europe and the Americas) and tomato production companies.

“Our goal is to achieve environmentally friendly and highly profitable agriculture in the cultivation of global processed tomatoes. Since 2020, we have been expanding our AI agriculture support tool CropScope, which we co-developed using NEC’s cutting-edge technology. The tool will be available in 2021. In order to strengthen our ability to provide solutions. In addition, we will accelerate the resolution of the problems faced by producers in the agricultural sector, aiming to achieve sustainable agriculture,” said Kengo Nakata, general manager of the Kagome Smart Agriculture Department.

“In the strategic partnership with Kagome, NEC has been expanding the digitization of the tomato market. At the same time, NEC has responded to the challenges faced by its production base by using NEC’s expertise in AI to enhance the versatility of agricultural advice and strengthen its’CropScope ‘Platform. NEC will continue to develop and provide solutions that help grow a variety of crops, help overcome social issues, climate change and food safety issues, while creating a sustainable agricultural experience,” said Teruyuki Nakajima, NEC Corporate Business Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Development Department.

About NEC Corporation

NEC Corporation has established itself as a leader in IT and network technology integration while promoting the brand statement of “Orchestrating a Brighter World”. NEC enables companies and communities to adapt to rapid changes in society and markets because it provides social values ​​of safety, security, fairness, and efficiency to promote a more sustainable world where everyone has the opportunity to realize their full potential. For more information, please visit NEC https://www.nec.com.

For more information, please visit https://www.nec.com/en/press/202106/global_20210607_01.html.

Source: NEC Corporation

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