Marubeni Corporation (hereinafter, “Marubeni”) has started to develop a new database (hereinafter, the “database”) to collect and integrate various data related to dairy and livestock farming, as well as an application service (hereinafter, the “service”) that will enable feed companies and financial institutions to access visualizations of such data in real time. The Service is scheduled to be launched in phases, starting in March , 2024, to verify its usefulness and business feasibility.

In addition to issues such as low production efficiency, farmer turnover, and lack of successors, the Japanese dairy and livestock industry faces the urgent task of increasing sustainability, such as reducing environmental impact, etc. In order to strengthen the competitiveness of Japanese livestock products in the global market, the industry must improve its productivity through the wider implementation of DX. In recent years, smart livestock production utilizing robots and IoT has become increasingly popular in Japan, but the data sets collected individually from various sensors remain unintegrated and are not efficiently utilized. In addition, timely data sharing with each stakeholder, such as feed companies and financial institutions, is necessary to improve productivity, but at present this data is not being shared sufficiently.

The database will collect and integrate all kinds of previously independent data (such as producers’ management status, cattle health status, and feed inventory status) acquired by various sensors, as well as the shipping records of raw milk and beef (which have been managed on paper), in real time, reducing the need for labor. Through the accompanying service, information from production sites will be shared in a timely manner with feed companies, financial institutions, and other stakeholders, aiming for a system that allows each stakeholder to quickly and appropriately resolve issues that arise at production sites, rather than having them be handled by producers alone.

For feed companies, the service will support optimal feeding management proposals by visualizing the cause-and-effect relationships leading up to current cattle conditions, and will also feature advanced analysis functions through comparisons of past performance and nationwide producers’ management status, as well as future forecasting functions that analyze accumulated big data by using AI, such as machine learning. Overall, the service will enable feed companies and producers to work together to solve problems and improve productivity at production sites in a data-based manner.

For financial institutions, the service will support more accurate financing by calculating the present value of individual cattle based on data, visualizing the producer’s future cash flow, and simulating the producer’s management while taking various factors into consideration. Overall, the service will enable financial institutions and producers to work together to create an environment in which they can actively invest in growth.

Going forward, Marubeni plans to expand this service to logistics companies, veterinary medicine companies, and veterinarians. Through the establishment and development of this database and service, Marubeni aims to promote DX throughout the industry and create a cross-industry mechanism for efficient cattle raising and production, thereby increasing the international competitiveness of Japanese livestock products and further developing the Japanese production model around the world.