Japanese technology giant Toshiba has built a huge "clean" factory farm where it is growing various types of lettuce (莴苣) leaves without sunlight or soil for sale in its new healthcare business.
Located in a disused 21,000squarefoot electronics factory in Yokosuka, Toshiba announces to have created a perfect "bacteriafree" environment where it will grow three million bags of lettuce a year.
Completely cut off from conditions outside the temperature controlled tank, lettuce inspectors wear full body suits while making notes on the quality and growth of the leaves on their iPads in order to prevent the air around the plants becoming contaminated.
Each plant is given manmade lighting to trick it into believing it is exposed to sunlight, while vitamin and nutrients are put directly into its roots, meaning the lettuce does not need soil.
Toshiba's new hightech farm may produce the world's highest quality lettuce. The final product will be free of any form of bacteria or insect life before being placed into sealed (密封的) bags, which should ensure the product has a longer shelf life than other lettuces.
The gardening technique aims to have a bacteria amount of no more than 1/1000thmuch lower than that found in normal gardening soil.
Toshiba aims to harvest three million bags of leaf lettuce, baby leaf greens, cabbages and other kinds of vegetables every yearwith each bag likely to cost people £1.
The most important thing in organic vegetables, the lettuce requires no pesticides (杀虫剂) but is expected to have a similar shelf to plants that have been heavily treated with chemicals.
The lettuce factory is no marketing trick by Toshiba, however. Instead it represents the company's latest attempt to expand its technologyled business.
There are already plans for the technology giant to build similar factories around the world over the coming years and it will also be selling the high tech equipment that allows factories to produce similar products of exceptionally high quality.
