Denso, one of the world’s largest advanced automotive technology suppliers, has invested in Certhon Group, a developer and builder of automated greenshouses.
Certhon operated mainly in Europe and the United States and will collaborate with Denso to expand its horticulture business in the global market, specifically by developing and providing automated greenhouse solutions.
While food demand increases as the global population continues to grow, the number of the agricultural population is decreasing due to demographic aging, unstable wages, and strict work environment.
Environmental issues caused by climate change and abnormal weather patterns have led to unstable agricultural production.
To tackle these global food-related issues, Denso and Certhon say it is necessary to establish a stable and sustainable agricultural production system by saving labor and reducing heavy work, and by creating a cultivation environment that is not affected by climate.
Certhon is a Dutch company that sells large-scale greenhouse solutions using advanced technology – including robotics – to more than 20 countries, aiming to maximize the profit of growers.
Through this capital alliance, and combined with Certhon’s horticulture business knowledge, Denso will develop next-generation greenhouse technologies, such as fully automated indoor farming, and sell greenhouse package solutions tailored to the diverse needs of countries across the world.
Denso Group’s “Long-term Policy 2030”, launched in 2017, has identified non-automotive business as one of its four focus areas and has defined agriculture as a key pillar under the non-automotive field.
Until now, Denso has contributed to the improvement of productivity in the agricultural field and the stabilization of cultivation environments through climate control technologies.
As part of that, AgriD, established in 2018 with Asai Nursery, has built one of the largest greenhouses in Japan to build greenhouse 24/7 operations through co-operation between farmers and robots to reduce the amount of work.
Moreover, Denso has started the demonstration of the automatic harvesting robot “Faro”, developed by the company itself.
In future, Denso says it will contribute to sustainable agricultural production through industrialization, and will “provide new value to the agri-food sector by establishing an integrated food value chain business”.
