Iwata City, Shizuoka Prefecture, NTT Green & Food, and NTT West signed  ”cooperation agreement regarding land-based aquaculture business”. In response, NTT Green & Food will build one of the largest land-based aquaculture plants in Japan in Iwata City. This is the first time the company has constructed a plant on its own.

Iwata City Mayor Hiroaki Kusachi said, ”Iwata City has a warm climate and abundant water resources.It is characterized by low energy costs in winter, and we are working to attract new industries by taking advantage of these advantages.” We are pleased to receive such an inquiry. We would like to use land-based aquaculture as an opportunity to come up with various plans and ideas and revitalize the region.”

NTT Green & Food was established in July with the aim of solving issues such as the decline of the fishing industry, food problems, and environmental problems. The company is developing land-based aquaculture using cutting-edge technology, and using this as an opportunity to revitalize the region.
President Yoshikazu Kusumi said, ”For example, we would like to create branded fish together with local people in order to revitalize the fishing industry, which will lead to job creation, promotion of local production for local consumption, and utilization of tourism resources”.”We have been looking for local governments with which we can collaborate, and as part of that effort, we were able to collaborate with Iwata City”.

The plant will be constructed on the site of a former Suzuki parts manufacturing factory in Iwata City. Completion and start of operations are scheduled for July next year. The fish species to be farmed is white-footed shrimp.
The company plans to operate three plants in the next three years. The company plans to increase the number of locations to 20 in the future.
President Kusumi said, ”The reason why we made the Iwata plant so large was because, as a result of simulations, we determined that this scale was the minimum level for making land-based aquaculture profitable.We will continue to build on the scale of the Iwata plant”.

NTT West will be responsible for providing and building ICT solutions used at the Iwata plant. We envision water temperature management, water quality monitoring, automatic feeding, etc. using IoT sensors. In the future, the company is considering using AI to remotely manage growing conditions and automating abnormality detection.