Action for the Future of Food, Water, and the Environment as Seen at Expo 2025: Japan

This is the final installment in the series entitled “Where the World and Kubota Intersect,” which has been introducing the future that countries from all over the world have envisioned at Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai (Expo 2025) and which has described related social issues and how Kubota has been involved.

Over the past six months, in this series we have visited pavilions from around the world examining the challenges and possibilities pertaining to food, water, and the environment. Now, although Expo 2025 has already drawn to a close, the final destination on this journey is the host country, Japan.

Japan: The Host Country's Vision for a Circular Future

The theme of the Japan Pavilion was “Between Lives.”

Taking circulation as its keyword, the very architecture of the Japan pavilion itself embodied the concept of cycles. The circular wooden structure was designed to be reused after dismantling. Natural light filtering in through gaps in the wooden exterior walls allowed visitors to warmly sense one another’s presence.

The pavilion was divided into three areas: “Plant,” “Farm,” and “Factory.” The comprehensive experience comprised the process of turning food waste being transformed into energy and water, the process of turning algae into raw materials, and traditional Japanese techniques intersecting with futuristic technologies.

Visitors experienced how food waste becomes the starting point of a cycle that transforms it into water and energy. They also saw firsthand the potential for algae being reborn as an alternative to plastic, sensing how cycles directly connect with our daily lives. What’s more, an exhibit featuring a rock from Mars that was discovered by a Japanese research team in Antarctica allowed visitors to touch a rock that has traveled through approximately 10 million years of time and that conveys memories of the universe to the present. Reaching out to this gift from a distant world, we realized that we live in a vast cycle extending far beyond Earth.

This experiential journey presented resource recycling technology not as “specialized technology,” but as something connected to our lives, the Earth, and the universe, eventually allowing us to sense that everyone is part of it.

Designed around the concept of the “cycle of life” and drawing on Japan's culture of coexisting with nature, the Japan pavilion presented a vision for the future in which recycling is rooted in daily life and social mechanisms. This value was a universal theme that resonates not only within Japan but also with pavilions around the world.

Food, Water, and the Environment: Common Challenges Emerging Across Regions

The perspective on cycles at the Japan pavilion overlaps that of the other countries we have seen in this series. While on the surface challenges each region faces may appear to be different, underlying common themes have emerged.

In Asia, as symbolized by India and Indonesia, the challenge lies in how to support small-scale farmers and ensure a stable food supply despite the huge populations.

In Europe, sustainable agriculture and water resource management that enhance productivity while reducing environmental impact have been major focal points.

In the Middle East, securing and circulating limited water and energy resources is fundamental to nation-building.

In North America, on-site labor shortages in agriculture and construction, as well as water resource constraints due to drought and climate change, are becoming increasingly severe.

In Africa, the rapid increase in food demand driven by population growth, compounded by the impacts of climate change, makes achieving both the modernization of agriculture as well as food and water security the greatest issues.

The fact that regardless of country or region, people share common challenges related to food, water, and the environment stood out at Expo 2025.

And, Japan is no exception. We face the same challenges as the rest of the world, including a low food self-sufficiency rate, the impact of climate change on agricultural products, and an aging infrastructure. This is precisely why the question now is, “How will we respond to these shared challenges?”

Exploring answers to that is a challenge Kubota is taking on.

Kubota's Long-term Vision GMB2030 establishes realizing a resource recycling society as a corporate commitment. Leveraging its strengths in connecting and supporting food, water, and the environment, the company continues its efforts to make the theme of "recycling" a reality.

One worksite symbolizing this effort is a plant (a demonstration test facility for the production of biofuel and bio liquid fertilizer from rice straw) in Ogata, Akita Prefecture that conducts demonstration tests. Approximately 8 million tons of rice straw are produced annually in Japan, most of which is plowed back into farmland. While rice straw can be used as fertilizer, one significant accompanying issue has been that it generates large amounts of methane gas whose greenhouse effect is approximately 28 times greater than CO₂.

Cooperating with the local community, this facility is working to create a system to give back to agriculture and the local area through using methane fermentation to convert collected rice straw into biogas and liquid fertilizer. Furthermore, in collaboration with Kyoto University and Waseda University, research on energy utilization that applies innovative catalyst technology is also advancing. The idea is to turn rice straw, which has traditionally been considered waste, into a resource to be recycled within the local community.

This is a step towards rooting “cycles” in everyday life, and is proof that it could serve as a model for the future.

The Answer Called Being Planetary-conscious

What has emerged from the first to this final Expo series installments (nine in total) is the question of how we envision the future of our planet Earth.

Underlying this is the concept of “planetary boundaries.” These indicate the environmental limits that must not be exceeded for humanity to continue to safely live on Earth. Currently, while the excessive nitrogen and phosphorus cycles are said to have already breached these boundaries, climate change and biodiversity loss are becoming increasingly serious as well. At the same time that agriculture in particular has been affected by these issues, it is also contributing to them.

In response to this profound question, Kubota seeks to offer an answer: to be “planetary-conscious^*1.”

1. *1. The balanced state of achieving both a prosperous society and a sustainable global environment

Kubota is promoting fully automated and eco-friendly farming, establishing sustainable food systems through data utilization, and creating mechanisms for the effective use of agricultural resources. Not limited to the agricultural sector, those efforts also contribute to the safe and secure recycling and supply of water, the development of urban environments, and the construction of sustainable social infrastructure. By connecting areas such as food, water, and the environment, Kubota is working to shape a future recycling-based society on a global scale.

Being planetary-conscious is to realize a future in which the Earth and all the life it supports can continue to thrive comfortably and happily. Toward this realization, Kubota will continue to take on challenges as an entity supporting the circularity of society as a whole.

The future is not far off; sprouts have already begun germinating. While intersecting with the world, Kubota will nurture these sprouts into the future.