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"Cucumber grading has been automated for years. Look on YouTube for automated cucumber grading systems.[1][2] There are many competing vendors. The commercial m
by aab0 10y ago
"Cucumber grading has been automated for years. Look on YouTube for automated cucumber grading systems.[1][2] There are many competing vendors. The commercial machines process their video locally and don't need "the cloud". They're also much faster."
I think OP in a way demonstrates something characteristic of Japanese agriculture:
"There are also some automatic sorters on the market, but they have limitations in terms of performance and cost, and small farms don't tend to use them."
Japanese agriculture is notoriously unproductive compared to other countries' yields and inputs, and a major reason is the lack of scale and mom-and-pop farms. If this farm were bigger or needed to save labor costs more, it could afford the already existing solutions and would sort cucumbers into more standard grades than their own ad hoc system. But they're not, so instead they do it by hand.
- lqdc13 10y agoHowever, don't they yield more per square foot than in other countries? It might make sense if space is much more valuable. In fact, even given their weird terrain features, they're pretty close to the top in cerial yield for example: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.YLD.CREL.KG?end=2014&start=1961&view=chart&year_high_desc=true http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.YLD.CREL.KG?end=2014&...
- yomly 10y ago>Japanese agriculture is notoriously unproductive compared to other countries' yields As an aside, my dad swore the produce was notedly better than what we have locally when he was travelling there. He on multiple occasions also discussed their dedication to quality. Maybe they're onto something given this related discussion was on HN earlier this year... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10997485 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10997485
- m_mueller 10y agoI'm a Swiss living in Japan and the produce here is hands down the best I've ever eaten. Locally produced stuff in fertile areas in Switzerland comes close, but in Japan it just seems to be so much more bred for taste than looks. No problem to eat raw with nothing added.