New Technology Lighting Changes Agriculture [Vegetable Factories Utilizing HEFL]

Changes in the food environment

We offer energy-saving vegetable factories that utilize new artificial lighting technology, the HEFL (Hybrid Electrode Fluorescent Lamp).
The vegetable factory is referred to as “4th generation agriculture.” Agriculture has evolved through the stages of open field agriculture, indoor agriculture, hydroponics farming, and vegetable factory. A vegetable factory can be defined as a “system to produce vegetables in an indoor environment with advanced environmental control all year round.”

In May 2006, the Positive List System for Agricultural Residues in Foods was introduced, and it has since enhanced the awareness of food safety in society. At the same time, poor weather conditions have resulted in an unstable supply of vegetables in recent years.

In traditional open field agriculture, pollution of the water in rivers and lakes by agrichemicals and fertilizers is a problem. Also, from the global perspective, agriculture is facing many challenges, including food shortage due to population growth as well as water deficiency, because of the scarcity of groundwater and global warming.

Problems in traditional vegetable factories

In the future, there will be greater demand for vegetable factories, which can grow products in a planned manner without agrichemicals. However, to meet the demand, the huge initial investment cost as well as the power consumption for lighting and air conditioning need to be reduced. Traditional vegetable factories use high pressure sodium lamps, conventional fluorescent lamps, and red LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes), which require large investments and running costs.

Advantages of introducing the HEFL

The Hybrid Electrode Fluorescent Lamp (HEFL) developed by our company emits less heat and can supply an appropriate amount of light to plants for sound growth by irradiating them with white, blue, red ultraviolet or for infrared wavelengths from proximal light sources.

Moreover, this efficient lighting generates less waste heat, which reduces the air conditioning costs of plant factories. A multi-shelf cultivation system using HEFLs can increase crop yields by 50% in comparison with those using conventional fluorescent lamps. Thus, the cultivation area per unit floor area can be expanded with the HEFL.

Urban agriculture in plant factories using existing warehouses and basements

With this low-cost artificial plant production system technology, we will develop techniques to produce nutritious vegetables without agrichemicals, sell them to consumers in a planned manner, and advocate local production for local consumption.