Department Chairman: Tomokazu Yoshida, Vice Chairman: Masae Sato, Secretary: Ikuhiro Teramoto

Agricultural land in Japan is declining and labor shortages are rapidly progressing due to the combination of the aging of the farmers, the departure of farmers, the limited number of new farmers, and the difficulty of hiring agricultural workers. On the other hand, while responding to the ever-expanding climate change, soaring prices of agricultural materials, expansion of managed agricultural land and wide-area decentralization, it not only maintains domestic productivity but also strengthens international competitiveness with an eye on overseas exports. We must hurry to build a system that can respond.

In order to strengthen the agricultural production base, production structure, and productivity in the future with a limited number of bearers and labor, "Smart" is one of the new agricultural production technology systems that utilize robot technology, ICT, and AI in Japan. We are strengthening our efforts for "agriculture".

Under these circumstances, the Production and Management Information Subcommittee, on the premise of utilizing ICT and AI, looks at the smart food value chain related to agricultural production, distribution, and consumption. While promoting research, development and dissemination of application systems and database construction related to industry and management, we aim to clarify the impact of such information systems on agricultural management and local communities.

Agricultural production and management are carried out under a complex system in which various conditions such as cultivation methods, varieties, weather and soil conditions, water environment, and market conditions are intertwined, and can be actually used in the field. In considering a useful information system, it is indispensable to collect information on such various sites. Especially in the utilization of AI, it is indispensable to acquire and maintain a large amount of objective learning data called big data. However, unfortunately, it is not always easy to acquire and collect this data at agricultural production and management sites, and there are still many inefficient situations.

In this sense, one of the themes of this subcommittee is how to collect on-site information from production to distribution and consumption at low cost, easily and efficiently.

At the same time, it is also necessary to test-operate various researched and developed information systems in the actual field and evaluate the effectiveness and problems of the systems. In this regard, research on system evaluation methodologies and feedback on system development is also important.

Another major theme is to clarify how the development and dissemination of information systems in a wide range of fields related to production, management, distribution, and consumption will affect agricultural management, local communities, distribution, and consumption structures.