Growers & Suppliers in Japan - CEA Watch 2026-27 Onsite Coverage

In September 2026, VerticalFarming.blog is going to Japan. Not for a trade show. Not for a one-week factory tour. I will spend roughly a year in Japan on a Working Holiday visa, and during that time VerticalFarming.blog will follow the Japanese controlled-environment agriculture and plant factory sector from the inside. The project is called Japan CEA Watch 2026/27. Why this matters: most of what we know about the Japanese CEA market comes from press releases and occasional trade-show snapshots. What's missing is the in-between. Does a product announced in October still sit on the shelf in January? Is there a price premium for hydroponically grown vegetables at a Tokyo convenience store versus an Okayama supermarket? Which plant factories are quietly expanding while others disappear? Starting from a base in Okayama, with regular access, Hiroshima, Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto, I'll be building a continuous, twelve-month dataset around several research streams: plant factory landscape, retail and product tracking, pricing, packaging and positioning, industry interviews, and consumer perception. The public blog stays public. Selected findings, interviews and stories will continue to be freely accessible. Research partners get earlier and deeper access to the structured data behind it. One open item, for transparency: I'm currently clarifying with Japanese immigration authorities whether this kind of sponsor-funded research work falls within what's permitted under my visa's designated activities. Until that's resolved, I'm not finalizing paid research partnerships, only having conversations about what they could look like. If you're a seed company, lighting manufacturer, packaging supplier, grower, automation provider or industry association with a stake in how Japan's CEA sector evolves over the next year, I'd like to hear from you. And I'm curious: if you had someone on the ground in Japan for twelve months, what would you want to know? Link to full details in the comments 🇯🇵 Japanese version below in the comments / 日本語版はコメント欄にございます #VerticalFarming #ControlledEnvironmentAgriculture #CEA #PlantFactory #AgTech #Japan #FoodTech #IndoorFarming #AgriTech #FutureOfFood Japan Plant Factory Association (JPFA) Association for Vertical Farming DLG e.V. - German Agricultural Society UK Urban AgriTech (UKUAT)