National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO)

Japan’s National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, known as NARO, carries out basic and applied research and development to support the country’s agriculture and food industries. Its nationwide institutes study subjects including crops, food, farm machinery, agricultural environments and animal health. The organization’s site presents research programs, published results and press releases, and helps producers, companies, researchers, students and the general public find information intended for them. It also shares standard operating procedures for applying research findings, along with information about crop varieties, patents, joint research and technology transfer. One research release describes an AI soil-diagnosis system developed for thirteen crops, including rice. It uses soil-analysis and farm-operation data to assess soil conditions and suggest improvements; NARO reports that its recommendations reached at least 90 percent agreement with expert recommendations across the thirteen crops. The release also explains how additional regional or producer data can be used to adapt a model. This is presented as a research result, not as a generally available product or public tool.

Key features

1. Basic and applied research for agriculture and food