Small farms in Japan are struggling to survive. Rural populations are shrinking, and the average farmer is 67 years old. But two new farms will test a different business model to try to reinvigorate the sector: solar panels with mushrooms growing underneath them.
The farms, at two locations in northeastern Japan, will produce a combined 4,000 kilowatts of solar power that will be sold to a local utility, while the mushroom farms will yield an annual 40 tons of cloud-ear mushrooms, a crop that is typically imported from China.
“The environment needs to be dark and humid for mushrooms to spawn,” says Minami Kikuchi, who leads the “solar sharing” project that combines agriculture and solar power at
“We simply created the suitable environment for them by making use of vacant space under the solar panels.” The company is working with Hitachi Capital, a leasing specialist that will provide the panels, and Daiwa House Industry, which will construct and maintain them.
“There is no doubt that Japanese agriculture is facing a serious crisis–the average age of Japanese farmers has been rising, and abandoned farmland has been expanding, mainly due to severe economic position of farmers,” Kikuchi writes Fast Company in an email. “To make improvements in this situation, we designed the project of combination with solar farms at large scale so that farmers could obtain additional stable income. Of course, this renewable energy technology is contributing to the sustainable development of Japan too.”
