Yoshihiro Noge: Supporting Farmers with Robots

2025/03/21

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, who is known as the father of modern Japanese economy.

Legmin was founded in May 2018 by myself, a former member of the Athletic Association Baseball Club, and my classmate Takuhiro Naruse, a former member of the Kyudo Club. I am in charge of the agricultural division, and Naruse is in charge of the development division.

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

I have many relatives who are farmers, and based on my experience supporting farmers and produce markets during my time as a banker, I was considering starting a business in agriculture. Meanwhile, Naruse had the opportunity to experience Dutch agriculture during a business trip to Europe and felt that Japanese agriculture had significant room for growth.

We decided to start a business together and traveled to farmland across Japan to research challenges in the agricultural industry. Focusing on the issue of labor shortages, we eventually established a company to develop agricultural robots.

Among my experiences at Keio University, I believe what has been most useful in managing a startup is that both of us "saw it through" to the end in the Athletic Association. It has been nearly seven years since we started the company, but without the four years spent in the Athletic Association, we would not have been able to keep the company going this long. With bank balances decreasing daily and robot development not going as planned, every day is a struggle, but we are somehow overcoming these difficulties with the grit and determination cultivated in the Athletic Association.

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

To address these issues, we are developing agricultural robots as a solution. Our flagship product is an autonomous pesticide-spraying robot. Beyond just development, we also provide a pesticide-spraying service using these robots to facilitate 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 Japan's 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.