Eliminating Damage from Pests, Diseases, and Weeds Through the Power of Agrochemicals and AI!

Background (Nihon Nohyaku’s Smart Agriculture Initiatives)

The agricultural sector is facing significant challenges around the world due to frequent abnormal weather conditions caused by climate change and the increasingly complex patterns of pest, disease, and weed outbreaks. Even as it becomes more difficult for farmers to make decisions on pest, disease, and weed control, society also faces limits to the potential expansion of farmland to meet the growing food demand from a rising population, leading to serious food shortages. In Japan, the aging population has resulted in a shortage of agricultural workers, making it increasingly important for farming operations to achieve greater efficiency and labor-saving. In response to these circumstances, we are collaborating with NTT DATA CCS CORPORATION to develop AI and applications, in addition to providing better agrochemicals. By utilizing IT systems to monitor the status of pest and disease outbreaks and offering advice optimized to control these outbreaks, we aim to achieve sustainable agriculture.

Ideal business model for 2030

• Leveraging AI and IT systems, we provide an environment where farmers can accurately monitor any outbreaks of pests, diseases, or weeds and make appropriate decisions to control them.
• We have established a platform that aggregates and analyzes data on the occurrence of pests, diseases, and weeds, assisting agricultural support organizations and companies around the world to solve their challenges through predictive models and control recommendations.
• By creating new revenue models centered on AI and data utilization, we contribute to stable crop production and sustainable food supply

Products and services

Diagnose Your Crops with AI! (LeiMe)
We released this smartphone app for the domestic market in 2020. It is equipped with many features that support decision-making at agricultural production sites, such as AI diagnosis functions, which automatically identify pests, diseases, and weeds from a photograph and suggests effective pesticides, AI forecasting functions, which notify users of high-risk pests and diseases through a link-up with forecast information and weather data, and recording functions, which enable the use of photos and tags to easily record information from agricultural production sites, not limited to pests and diseases. The AI diagnosis covers 30 crops and, as of the end of October 2025, has achieved a total of approximately 280,000 downloads, boasting a wide range of users.

NacField
This service, launched in 2024, provides technology through an API. It aims to integrate AI, algorithms, and agricultural data owned by Nihon Nohyaku with external products to co-create new value. Through this service, we have already achieved integration with Kubota's agricultural support service “KSAS” and JA Zen-Noh’s field management system “Z-GIS.” (An API, or Application Programming Interface, is an interface that enables applications to exchange functions and data. It is used to incorporate the functions of other services into proprietary apps and exchange information between systems.)

AcroSeeker
This app was launched in 2022 to diagnose pests, diseases, and weeds for overseas farmers. It is available for download worldwide, and has been localized to support local languages and crops in India, Vietnam, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Laos, providing diagnoses tailored to the needs of farmers in each country. It has been downloaded over 70,000 times globally.
In Laos, the introduction of AcroSeeker was requested as part of JICA’s Project for Strengthening Food Value Chain, a technical cooperation project, and it was officially released with the full cooperation of Laos’ Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) and Plant Protection Center.

Value Creation

The “Diagnose Your Crops with AI!” app, which we have developed and provide, has achieved a total of approximately 280,000 downloads in Japan and is widely used at agricultural production sites. Meanwhile, “AcroSeeker,” which we are rolling out globally, has achieved a total of approximately 70,000 downloads worldwide, contributing to our international support for agriculture. Through these apps, we directly connect with agricultural workers around the world and leverage their feedback to improve our services and digital marketing. Additionally, based on the app data, we monitor the needs at agricultural production sites and use this insight to deliver more effective information and product proposals. Furthermore, our collaboration with Kubota’s farming support system, “KSAS,” has enabled more farmers to utilize AI-powered diagnostic functions. This promotes the further digitalization of agriculture, contributing to improved decision-making support and work efficiency on-site.

Japan is experiencing increasingly complex outbreaks of pests, diseases, and weeds, while a decline in the number of agricultural supervisors has made it difficult to rely solely on conventional forecasting systems. To address these challenges, in May 2025, we collaborated with JA Zen-Noh to release a data integration solution combining “Diagnose Your Crops with AI!” and “Z-GIS.” This solution visualizes information collected on-site, including damage from pest and disease outbreaks, natural disaster, and crop growth conditions, which is utilized by organizations such as local governments and JA.

Overseas, we are working with partners in various countries to promote the collection and analysis of data on pest and disease outbreaks. In addition, by integrating various technologies and data, we are expanding the scope of our solutions and contributing to the creation of new business opportunities

TOPICS The LeiMe AI Pest Identification and Counting System

This system functions as a support tool for sanitary pest control. By taking an image of a paper insect trap, it automatically identifies the type and number of pests and outputs a report. We began offering this service in 2022 through our subsidiary, AgriMart Corporation. Utilizing our AI technology, the system can identify even very tiny insects.Currently, it is being used to achieve more efficient pestcontrol in warehouses for food and pharmaceuticals, as well as in restaurants.

In December 2025, we launched a new brand called “AiPics” for the “LeiMe AI Pest Identification and 
Counting System.” This system has been redesigned with user-friendliness and analytical functionality in mind, addressing hygiene management challenges at manufacturing and logistics sites and allowing anyone to easily conduct high-precision monitoring. December 12, 2025 Press Release: “Notice Regarding the Launch of the New ‘AiPics’ Brand” (in Japanese only).