Three Japanese Companies Team Up to Remove Salt from Tsunami-Hit Farmland

Three Japanese companies, Myfarm Co., NTT Docomo Inc. and NEC Corp., announced on August 25, 2011, that they have teamed up to support agricultural reconstruction of the salt-affected farmland left in the wake of the tsunami triggered by the East Japan Great Earthquake. The agricultural land along the Pacific Ocean coast in the Tohoku region was widely inundated with salt water, and salt levels remain unsuitable for farming. Myfarm, a venture company aiming to address various challenges to improve Japanese agriculture, is supporting these areas to reconstruct agriculture with proprietary technology to remove salt from soil. In cooperation with Myfarm, NTT Docomo, a leading mobile phone carrier, and NEC, a major electronics company, will provide their accumulated know-how and their own sensor products.

Myfarm's recently developed improvement agent for salt-affected soil contains microorganisms that resolve salt, which, when blended with salt-affected soil, provides usable farmland. Myfarm currently uses this soil improvement agent in the tsunami-stricken farmland targeted by this project, and has also started selling the products to other salt-affected farmers.

NTT Docomo and NEC have set up their own environmental sensors to collect data on rainfall and salt concentrations in the farmland being treated by Myfarm. Utilizing their mobile phone networks and cloud servers, they aim to measure the effectiveness of the soil improvement agent. The companies will also use the data to promote this soil improvement method by freely providing it to users when they buy the product.

How Did the Great East Japan Earthquake Affect Ecosystems and Biodiversity?
http://www.japanfs.org/en/mailmagazine/newsletter/pages/031172.html

Posted: 2011/12/06 06:00:15 AM