Jin Kawaguchiya gave up a career in finance to help revive Japan's ailing dairy industry, one robot at a time.
In a country that relies increasingly on imported foods like cheese and butter, Japan's milk output tumbled over two decades, touching a 30-year low in 2014. Costs rose faster than prices as the economy stagnated, eroding profit, and aging farmers quit the business because they could not find enough young people willing to take on the hard labor of tending to cows every day.
But technology is altering that dynamic. In Hokkaido, Japan's top dairy-producing region, Kawaguchiya transformed the 20-cow farm he inherited from his father-in-law 16 years ago into Asia's largest automated milking factory. Robots milk 360 cows three times a day and make sure the animals are fed and healthy.