Implementation of integrated information sharing system of food production, marketing, and consumption

There are many problems in Japanese agriculture, and the most critical thing among these is a rapid decrease in the working population due to a growing proportion of elderly people. The cause of the aging in the agricultural field would be small incomes due to the low agricultural productivity. To improve the income level, the authors have developed an information sharing system of food production, marketing, and consumption, named food CMS (Contents Management System). Food CMS aims to promote proper management of food resources in the whole food supply chain. The types of users in Food CMS are farmers, customers, and distributors including retailing stores, brokers, and restaurants, so Food CMS has the capability to give benefits appropriate to the types of users. Concretely, Food CMS provides services such as the direct relationship-building between a customer and a producer, sales opportunity with e-commerce, freshness management of foods, and rationalization of the order placement and acceptance work between distributors. Since the integrated database of Food CMS can store all distribution data of foods, the data will contribute to adjusting the supply to demand and reducing the food loss. This paper shows the effort the authors have addressed, especially the functional design of Food CMS, and the performance.