SoylentNews

c0lo [soylentnews.org] writes:

Wall Street Journal runs a story [wsj.com] on Japanese electronics factories "diversifying" into running greenhouses.

Struggling to compete with rivals in South Korea or China in businesses like televisions and smartphones, a range of Japanese electronics giants are converting idled factories to agriculture.

Last month, as Fujitsu began selling lettuce from the Aizu-Wakamatsu plant, Toshiba Corp said it would begin growing vegetables inside a floppy disk factory near Tokyo that hasn't been used for two decades. Later this year, Panasonic Corp will start selling computer-program controlled greenhouses to grow spinach and other vegetables. And Sharp Corp last year began laboratory tests to grow strawberries at an indoor site in Dubai using its lighting and air-purifying technologies.

Because the lettuce is grown in a bacteria-free space, it keeps much longer than ordinary produce — up to two months if refrigerated, the company says.
"Because it stays fresh for so long, this will give us a competitive edge when we ship it for export," says Akihiko Sato, a manager at the plant, showing that an economic model honed during the days of the transistor radio, when overseas sales fueled growth, retains its appeal.
But high-tech lettuce comes at a price. At a supermarket near Tokyo, a small bag of Fujitsu lettuce was selling for $3, about $1 more than a whole head of ordinary lettuce.

Fujitsu is starting modestly, with production of 3,500 heads of lettuce a day, but says that if all goes well, it intends to produce about $4 million worth by the 2016 fiscal year, up from a goal of $1.5 million this year.

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