PRECISION AGRICULTURE RESEARCH AT KYOTO UNIVERSITY -- Concept and objectives of the research

One of the way of the preserving environment is the circulation of materials. Japan's cereal food self-sufficiency rate is less than 30%. Japan imports more than 30 million tons of food every year. Japanese are afraid of international food trade giving damages to environment. Advanced farm mechanization integrated with precision farming is an answer to solve these problems. Crop scientists, soil scientists and agricultural engineers at Kyoto University cooperate together in studying precision agriculture for paddy rice since 1996. Automatic follow-up combine and autonomous vehicle have been developed. Remotely sensing by using machine vision has been studied to measure nitrogen contents. Field map i.e. soil, growth and yield, in paddy field of 0.5 ha has been made. In this report the concept and objectives of advanced farm mechanization and precision agriculture research at Kyoto University are introduced.