On September 11, Nomura Real Estate announced the opening of "Vegestic Farm" Yokohama Sugita by grow, a smart community farm, on the rooftop of "Landport Yokohama Sugita," a large-scale multi-tenant logistics facility jointly developed with IHI and completed in March of this year.
<Exterior view of the facility>
<Scenes from the completion and opening event>
The farm is approximately 160 square meters in size. It opened on September 8th, and an opening event was held where workers from the facility and those involved in its development were invited to help with tasks such as adding soil and planting seeds.
Going forward, the plan is to promote its use as a place for regional revitalization, learning about food and agriculture, inter-company exchange, and relaxation. This will include worker-participation workshops and, in the future, providing a space for interaction among local residents through food and agriculture experiences.
<Scenes from the farm before it opened>
A smart community farm is a collaborative farm designed for experiencing food and agriculture, equipped with Plantio's digital farming platform.
The company is a startup that develops vegetable cultivation systems and other related products. It uses its own IoT sensors and apps to analyze soil moisture and temperature, and notify users of the best watering times, enabling smart vegetable cultivation. While the company has previously installed its systems on the rooftops of apartment buildings and other buildings, this will be its first installation in a logistics facility.
Nomura Real Estate positions the farm as an "outdoor third place," and aims to improve the working environment for facility users and propose new community tools.
We believe that by connecting food and agricultural experiences through a single smartphone, and by engaging in dialogue and work as part of "community farming" rather than simply renting out plots, we can play a central role in fostering connections and relationships between people.
Furthermore, from a disaster prevention perspective, the aim is to build a community centered around the location so that it will be recognized as a local evacuation site in times of emergency.
