On April 21 and 22, 2025, Dr. Coughlin, Past President of IEEE, visited the Kyushu-Okinawa Agricultural Research Center (KARC) of NARO and gave a lecture on smart agriculture to an audience including external participants. NARO and IEEE will continue to collaborate on the development and dissemination of smart agriculture.
Dr. Thomas M. Coughlin, Past President of IEEE, and Dr. Matt Francis, Region 5 Director, who visited Japan for the IEEE-VICS (Vision, Innovation, and Challenges Summit) held in Tokyo on April 23rd and 24th, 2025, visited the NARO KARC on April 21st and 22nd.
First, on April 21, the IEEE group visited Atsumaru Holdings' NSP Yamaga Factory in Yamaga City, Kumamoto Prefecture. Atsumaru Holdings is one of the startup companies supported by NARO. The NSP Yamaga Factory is a building with high hygiene standards (Class 10,000 cleanliness level) that uses the latest technology and equipment to realize large-scale, year-round, sterile sericulture. Cocoon proteins are also used as cosmetics, soaps, and food additives. In addition, various products are being developed, such as fluorescent silk, medical materials for wound healing, and pharmaceuticals such as oral vaccines for animals. These diverse products use biotechnologies such as silkworm genetic engineering and genome editing that NARO has developed.
On April 22nd, in a conference room at the KARC Headquarters in Koshi City, several staff members from the KARC gave presentations in English to the IEEE group on sweet potato breeding, measures against root rot disease, an app for visualizing the fertilizer effectiveness of organic materials, and the development of crop-local CO2 enrichment technology for strawberries. There were many questions, such as whether the developed technology could be applied in other countries, and the KARC members answered them.
Next, Dr. Coughlin gave a lecture entitled "Enabling a Smart Agriculture Ecosystem." Although the lecture was in person only, there were over 50 participants from companies, educational institutions, research institutes, and economic organizations, mainly from Kumamoto Prefecture. Dr. Coughlin gave a wide-ranging, highly suggestive presentation, beginning with an overview of IEEE and covering IEEE's vision and action plan for smart agriculture, individual technologies such as food sterilization and packaging, a website currently being prepared specifically for smart agriculture, and standardization activities related to agriculture and food.
Currently, NARO and IEEE are collaborating at the IEEE-SA on the development of international standards for sensing the freshness of fruits and vegetables. It is expected that they will deepen their collaboration in the field of smart agriculture as well.
Dr. Coughlin also wrote about his visit to Kyushu, along with his other experiences during his stay in Japan, on his blog (External Link :forbes)
