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Are Japanese germ-free vegetables the food of the future?
Japan
Monday 08 June 2009
While pests are a major problem for agriculture, they usually aren't for the consumer who eats the products. That doesn't mean that there are no potential problems with this food. One of the main problems is contamination with harmful bacteria, such as E. Coli, Salmonella or Listeria. This problem is potentially even worse in so-called organic foods because the organic protocols usually limit or totally exclude the use of disinfectants, such as the ubiquitous chlorine. And this is where the new Japanese vegetable factories come in.
The Daily Mail reports that in Japan, a whole new type of agriculture is being organized. No longer are vegetables planted in fields where they are subject to unpredictable weather, pests and contamination. No, they are now cultivated in factories.
These are not your usual run-of-the-mill dirty and noisy factories. They are rather more like the clean rooms in the factories where computer chips or pharmaceuticals are made. Everything is controlled in these factories: lighting, temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide and water. The plants are not even exposed to the air outside, nor are they exposed to any dirt or insects. These factories, such as the Ozu Corporation in Tokyo, claim to be able to meet the demands of consumers who want safe foods. Hydroponics, a series of techniques to cultivate plants without soil, only water and mineral nutrients, is well known to produce very clean, pure produce without the need for pesticides of any kind.
These are not your usual run-of-the-mill dirty and noisy factories. They are rather more like the clean rooms in the factories where computer chips or pharmaceuticals are made. Everything is controlled in these factories: lighting, temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide and water. The plants are not even exposed to the air outside, nor are they exposed to any dirt or insects. These factories, such as the Ozu Corporation in Tokyo, claim to be able to meet the demands of consumers who want safe foods. Hydroponics, a series of techniques to cultivate plants without soil, only water and mineral nutrients, is well known to produce very clean, pure produce without the need for pesticides of any kind.
This newer form of agriculture takes the hydroponics idea even further by producing produce that is as close to sterile -as in: free of bacterial contamination- as possible.
Sterility and total absence of pests and hence, pesticides, are important benefits not the least of which is that the end customer does not even have to wash the vegetables. They can be eaten as this. Another benefit is that production can continue 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. This vastly improves productivity. Lettuce, for example, can be cropped up to 20 times a year. Some factories produce up to 3 million vegetables a year.
The creators of these plant factories think that they do not only produce perfect looking vegetables that are completely free of contamination, but that this could well be the future of food.
