Re:How a Japanese cucumber farmer is using deep learning and...
by yomly on Thursday September 01, 2016 @03:44AM
(#12403646)
>Japanese agriculture is notoriously unproductive compared to other countries' yields
As an aside, my dad swore the produce was notedly better than what we have locally when he was travelling there. He on multiple occasions also discussed their dedication to quality.
Maybe they're onto something given this related discussion was on HN earlier this year...
Re:How a Japanese cucumber farmer is using deep learning and...
by m_mueller on Thursday September 01, 2016 @08:26AM
(#12404705)
I'm a Swiss living in Japan and the produce here is hands down the best I've ever eaten. Locally produced stuff in fertile areas in Switzerland comes close, but in Japan it just seems to be so much more bred for taste than looks. No problem to eat raw with nothing added.
Re:How a Japanese cucumber farmer is using deep learning and...
by lqdc13 on Wednesday August 31, 2016 @10:23PM
(#12402770)
However, don't they yield more per square foot than in other countries? It might make sense if space is much more valuable.
In fact, even given their weird terrain features, they're pretty close to the top in cerial yield for example:
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.YLD.CREL.KG?end=2014&...
I think OP in a way demonstrates something characteristic of Japanese agriculture:
"There are also some automatic sorters on the market, but they have limitations in terms of performance and cost, and small farms don't tend to use them."
Japanese agriculture is notoriously unproductive compared to other countries' yields and inputs, and a major reason is the lack of scale and mom-and-pop farms. If this farm were bigger or needed to save labor costs more, it could afford the already existing solutions and would sort cucumbers into more standard grades than their own ad hoc system. But they're not, so instead they do it by hand.