Fujitsu’s New Product…Lettuce?

Posted by Tina

Wow…talk about career change! Japanese electronics and chip makers, no longer able to compete with rivals in South Korea and China, have turned to agriculture for survival:

Mr. Miyabe and Fujitsu aren’t alone in this circuit-boards-to-plowshares transition. Struggling to compete with rivals in South Korea or China in businesses like televisions and smartphones, a range of Japanese electronics giants are converting idled factories to agriculture.

Last month, as Fujitsu began selling lettuce from the Aizu-Wakamatsu plant, Toshiba Corp. 6502.TO -1.04% said it would begin growing vegetables inside a floppy disk factory near Tokyo that hasn’t been used for two decades. Later this year, Panasonic Corp. 6752.TO -1.05% will start selling computer-program controlled greenhouses to grow spinach and other vegetables. And Sharp Corp. 6753.TO -1.49% last year began laboratory tests to grow strawberries at an indoor site in Dubai using its lighting and air-purifying technologies.

The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is encouraging the development. Previous administrations merely propped up unprofitable businesses, but Mr. Abe wants them to turn over a new leaf. He also wants to restructure Japanese agriculture, which is dominated by aging family farmers working tiny plots of land, a system that results in high food costs. If big companies move into farming, Mr. Abe reckons, prices will fall.

The Prime Minister is being compared to Ronald Reagan. His economic policies, including lowering corporate taxes, are reviving businesses.

We are living in strange times…lettuce from chip makers? Next they’ll be making salsa!