Sumitomo Corporation has underwritten a third-party allotment of shares of Nileworks, a company that designs, manufactures, and sells full-automated agricultural drones. Through this investment, Sumitomo Corporation will further accelerate its collaboration with Nileworks and contribute to solving issues facing the agriculture industry in Japan through the development of agricultural drones and other DX-based agriculture-related businesses. In addition, with the participation of Yamaha Motor, a new strategic partner, we will work together to further improve the aircraft design and operability of agricultural drones and establish a presence in the market.
Solving Japan’s Agricultural Challenges with Technology
In recent years, due to the factors such as the falling birthrate and aging population, the agricultural population have been declining and there is a shortage of successors. In addition, the environment surrounding Japanese agriculture has reached a major turning point, as some farmers are becoming larger as a result of the consolidation of farmland. In 2025, the domestic market for agriculture using technology called “agri-tech” is expected to be worth approximately 180 billion yen and the domestic market for agricultural drones is seen to skyrocket to approximately 94 billion yen.