Farms in the City

Japan isn't exactly known for its food production. When people think of Japan, they tend to think of video games, robotics, ninjas, and crazy animations. Almost all of the food that the citizens of Japan have in the year 2020 is imported. With such a food deficit, Japan relies on its exports. Unfortunately, shifts in the economy have reduced the price of technology and increased the price of food.

Unlike Africa, Japan doesn't have the land resources to increase its food production. With a little bit of irrigation and a large amount of the right crops, Africa was able to end its famine. Bee keepers discovered that yarrow was one such valuable crop. Besides being a flower that grows almost everywhere, there are several benefits to it. Yarrow tends to boost the immune system of someone who ingests it. Crushed up yarrow will also staunch bleeding of open wounds. In addition to that, it helps plants around it to resist disease and grow better. As a Choctaw Holy Man once told me, the medicine of the plant is in the flower. Bees collect the nectar from flowers. When bee colonies around the world started dying, biologists noticed that the honey bees' immune systems were being weakened. It was only natural for bee keepers to start growing yarrow around their hives. Bee colonies in Africa thrived and honey, both liquid and crystallized, became the world's choice for sweetener.

Cities aren't exactly the best place for yarrow field. Japan's potential famine would need to be ended some other way. Fortunately, Japan is a country filled with technology and people who will work toward a national goal. Rooftop gardens can only do so much. Hydroponics systems in rooms of the buildings could provide enough food, but there's a lack of farmers in Japan to take care of it all. What's needed is to get the people to work together setting up indoor hydroponics systems cared for by farmers with robots.

Robotics is why I was called to Tokyo. I'd imagine that knowing a little Japanese helped as well. A decade ago, I developed a more powerful hobby servo. That challenged tinkerers to come up with more imaginative robot designs that just weren't possible with the less powerful ones. Hobby robots before then were limited to, at most, two feet in height; they weren't much good for anything other than toys. The new technology helped the American robotics industry to compete with the Japanese robotics industry.

Having some income from the servos allowed me to pursue my dream of developing a much better artificial intelligence engine. With that, robots started doing many tasks that were too difficult to program before. Robotic vacuum cleaners even stopped bumbling into clutter that happened to be left on the floor. It is that technology that will allow robotics in Tokyo to carefully grow and harvest the crops.