Space Bigdata Rice Project

Rice is the most important food for many countries — like for Japanese people. In Japan, there are a lot of variety of rice brands, some with higher prices and high quality from specific areas in Japan. It is like wine from some region in France, Burgundy or Bordeaux. By collaborating with Japanese largest rice distributor, Shinmei, and agri IoT solution company, Enowa, Tenchijin created a new high quality brand of rice, “Sora to Mizu,” by using satellite data and IoT technology.

Tenchijin’s Land Evaluation Engine solves issues of climate change by using satellite data and AI, evaluating the future impact of climate change on potential locations for agriculture, real estate, city development, disaster management. The company is one of the JAXA (Japanese Space Agency) certified startups, JAXA Venture.

Tenchijin found suitable sites for the rice by using the Land Evaluation Engine and provided environmental data from satellites to control irrigation better. The first harvest was done in Autumn 2021 and sold very well.

The project will be expanded to other areas of Japan to create more brands of rice in many place in Japan, which provide more profit for farmers.