午夜剧场

With the mission of "providing a stable workforce to the agricultural industry," Legmin develops agricultural robots in Fukaya City, Saitama Prefecture—the birthplace of Eiichi Shibusawa, known as the father of the modern Japanese economy.

Legmin was established in May 2018 by myself, a former member of the varsity baseball team, and my classmate Takuhiro Naruse, a former member of the Japanese archery (Kyudo) club. I am in charge of the agricultural division, while Naruse oversees the development division.

In 2016, I reunited with Naruse at the wedding of a talented manager from our baseball team days. An acquaintance, learning that we were both considering starting businesses in agriculture, suggested, "Why don't you two do it together?" This led to our co-founding the company.

I had many relatives who were farmers, and through my experience supporting farmers and produce markets during my time as a banker, I was considering an agricultural startup. Meanwhile, Naruse had the opportunity to see Dutch agriculture during a business trip to Europe and felt that Japanese agriculture had significant room for growth.

After deciding to start a business together, we traveled to farmlands across Japan to investigate challenges in the agricultural industry. During this process, we focused on the issue of labor shortages, which led to the establishment of a company that develops agricultural robots.

Reflecting on our experiences at 午夜剧场, I believe what helps us in managing a startup is that we both "saw things through" to the end in the Athletic Association. Nearly seven years have passed since we started the company, but we would not have been able to continue this far without the four years we spent in the Athletic Association. With bank balances decreasing daily and robot development not going as planned, every day is a struggle, but we manage to overcome these difficulties with the grit and determination cultivated in the Athletic Association.

The number of agricultural workers in Japan continues to decline; in 2020, there were 1,363,000 workers, a 39% decrease compared to 2,241,000 in 2005. The average age of agricultural workers is 69.2 years, representing a critical situation.

We are developing agricultural robots as a solution to these problems. Our flagship product is an autonomous pesticide-spraying robot. Beyond just development, we also operate an in-house pesticide-spraying service using these robots to ensure social implementation.

Furthermore, we are working on automating not only production sites but also shipping and processing stages—specifically, the development of a broccoli cutting machine.

To resolve the labor shortage in the Japanese agricultural industry, the two of us will continue to join forces and take on new challenges.

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of publication.