Agriculture, forestry, and fishing in Japan
Agriculture, farming, and fishing form the primary sector of industry of the Japanese economy together with the Japanese mining industry, but together they account for only 1.3% of gross national product. Only 20% of Japan's land is suitable for cultivation, and the agricultural economy is highly subsidized.
Agrivoltaic
In 2004 in Japan, Akira Nagashima developed a demountable structure that he tested on several crops. Since then, many field projects have been installed in Japan with a large number of crops (citrus fruits, peanuts, eggplants, cucumbers, cabbage, rice, vines, mushrooms ...) or livestock. Removable structures allow farmers to remove or move facilities based on crop rotations and their needs. Increasingly large plants with capacities of several MW have been developed since 2004 with permanent structures and dynamic systems. For example, a 35 MW power plant, installed on 54 ha of crops, was commissioned in 2017. The shading rate of this plant is 50%, a value higher than the 30% shading usually used on Japanese agrivoltaic power plants. Farmers cultivate, among others, ginseng, ashitaba and coriander. Soon, the island of Ukujima should host a solar power plant of 480 MW, part of which will be agrivoltaics. The project has been under study since 2013 and the various partners have signed an agreement for the start of construction in 2019.