A 70-year-old entrepreneur is promoting the indoor, computer-assisted cultivation of vegetables to establish a business model that can draw young people back to agriculture.

Takaaki Abe founded Granpa Co. in Yokohama in 2004 with the aim of using technology to develop a profitable indoor farming method. He was 61 at the time.

The company makes use of specially designed dome-shaped buildings to grow its produce. Each is about 30 meters across and is equipped with an automatically rotating hydroponic water tank as well as computer systems that maintain temperature and humidity at optimum levels.