{"id":643,"date":"2024-02-10T13:44:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-10T13:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innovationquarter.nl\/en\/?p=643"},"modified":"2026-07-03T08:24:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T08:24:33","slug":"inaho-and-the-future-of-automated-farming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innovationquarter.nl\/en\/updates\/inaho-and-the-future-of-automated-farming\/","title":{"rendered":"Inaho and the future of automated farming"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When envisioning the future of farming and innovations within the hightech horticulture industry, it is often difficult to not imagine robots autonomously rolling around through crop fields and greenhouses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Yu<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Inaho was founded in Kamakura, Japan in 2017 by CEO Yutaka Hishiki and COO Sohya Ohyama. Mr. Hishiki focused on following trends in AI and was inspired to create a harvesting robot, while Mr. Ohyama brought a background of value optimization and team building. Inaho\u2019s mission is to \u201cmake farming more sustainable\u201d as Yu shared, as well as to help with the current labour shortage in the agricultural industry. Labour shortage in the industry is a worldwide problem and a growing concern in Japan with 68 as the average age of farmers in 2020<\/a>. Research published in the OECD Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Working Papers <\/em>shows similar concerns in the Netherlands, with large increases in vacancy rates of Dutch agricultural jobs. Yu posed the problem with these trends, asking \u201cimagine after 10 years, what [will] happen?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inaho\u2019s solution is a fully automated harvesting robot<\/a>, currently built to harvest snack tomatoes. Snack tomatoes were chosen because of their market value and the amount of labour required to harvest them. This is in addition to their Plant Phenotyping Robot<\/a> for labs and researchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inaho\u2019s harvesting robot is currently being tested with Dutch growers in Westland and inaho hopes to have their robot fully on the market by the end of 2024.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The feedback gained from growers such as Nick Duijvestijn (Kwekerij Duijvestijn<\/a>) and Ferry Adegeest (TVA Growers) has been invaluable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inaho\u2019s location in Zuid-Holland, their first international office, allows them to tap into a vast network of growers and other horticulture professionals, as well as access to facilities such as Tomatoworld<\/a> and World Horti Centre<\/a>. One of their biggest challenges has been a negative perception around robotics for harvesting. Dutch growers are advanced and privy to new cutting edge technology so various growers have tried robots in the past. These past attempts did not meet their expectations and in the small world of growers where news travels fast, many of them are wary of new robots in their greenhouses. Yu hopes to quickly change their mind after trialling inaho\u2019s harvesting robot.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\n
\n\t\n\t
\n\t\t