With Japan facing a significant labor shortage on the horizon, many industries including the agricultural and manufacturing sectors are hoping robots will be a high-tech game changer.

Some robots are already turning up in unexpected places, including a bell pepper farm in Shintomi, Miyazaki Prefecture, on the main southern island of Kyushu.

The farm is run by Agrist, a startup company using advanced technology in place of human workers.

The L robot harvests bell peppers. The robot's artificial intelligence was trained to recognize fruit ripe for harvesting by being shown about 30,000 images of ripe bell peppers.

The robot glides between the rows of plants on wires near the ceiling of the vinyl house. When it’s two cameras detect a ripe pepper, a robot arm extends to cut the fruit and place it in a cart.

It takes the robot about a minute to harvest one bell pepper, much slower than a human worker, but its strength lies in its ability to work continuously, without breaks.

However, each robot costs between 2 million and 3 million yen ($13,800 and $20,700).

After the robot was installed two years ago, the harvest from the vinyl house was about 1.4 times greater than the Miyazaki Prefecture average.

“It doesn’t suddenly take a day off and there is no need to set up a work schedule for the robots,” said Hiroki Hata, 30, chief technology officer for Agrist. “The robot is easy to rely on as a labor force.”

The company never intended to have the robots supplement human workers, but rather designed the farm to be sustainable with only robot labor from the start.

Agriculture faces a bleak labor shortage. According to the farm ministry, while there were about 1.23 million farm workers in 2022, that figure is estimated to fall to about one-fourth that level in the next two decades.

“Left as is, Japanese agriculture will come to an end,” Hata said. “People will starve if an unexpected situation, such as a war, occurred.”

Another farm in Tsu, Mie Prefecture, also uses robots to harvest tomatoes.

Yuichiro Asai, 43, head of the Asai Nursery, has set up a joint venture known as AgriD with Denso Corp., the major auto parts manufacturer.

Asai uses seven robots to harvest and transport the tomatoes on a farm the same size as Tokyo Dome. The transport robot carries 350 kilograms of harvested tomatoes in a rack, weighs the fruit and takes it to the delivery point.

AgriD has also developed a harvesting robot and is planning to sell the equipment to Europe.

“A model of cooperation between humans and robots is being realized,” Asai said. “Productivity can be increased by concentrating farmland and using technology. Opportunity awaits those who are not afraid of change.”

Despite many innovations, robots still cannot solve labor problems for all companies.

Fanuc Corp., a major industrial robot manufacturer, set up a booth at an international robot exhibition held in Tokyo in November and December.

On display was a robot that decorated cakes according to users’ orders.

With the spread of robots on the assembly lines of semiconductor and automobile manufacturers, sales of robots in 2022 exceeded 1 trillion yen.

The development of smaller robots has also opened doors for business outside of large factories.

Increasingly, robots are being looked at as the answer to the labor shortage in manufacturing.

Recruit Works Institute has estimated that the manufacturing sector will face a labor shortage of 1.12 million workers in 2040.

Atsuo Takanishi, a professor of robotics at Waseda University, said, “Attention had been focused on robots due to their stable quality and improved productivity, but worker shortages have led to a review of the technology.”

Development is progressing on robots for use in the distribution and construction sectors as well.

Progress in artificial intelligence has led to the development of robots capable of doing difficult tasks that at one time were considered only possible by humans.

But other companies at the robot exhibition admitted that while robots held huge potential, they should not be considered a cure-all for a worker shortage.

One official was shown a photo by a worker at a small factory who asked about the possibility of using a robot to take over one part of that manufacturing process. But the worker left disappointed after being told the process and cost to install such a robot.

The company official said it might cost up to 10 million yen to customize a robot to meet the specific needs of a factory.

“There are still many small companies who feel it would be cheaper to continue hiring humans in the short term,” the official said.

Hiroshi Fujiwara, an executive of the Japan Robot Association, which sponsored the exhibition, said, “A work process established with humans as the standard must be reviewed to separate the labor handled by robots from labor that should be done by humans.”

Takanishi said while past robot development was led by the robot companies, the future will require greater input from the users.

Such collaboration has already begun between some companies with specific issues and robot developers.

“It is unrealistic to expect sudden change,” Takanishi said. “At first, robots should be given the tasks with a heavier burden to improve the human labor environment. The accumulation of such efforts will be important.”

(This article was written by Tetsuya Ishikura and Sho Tanji.)