Hi-tech Japanese farmers look to the Cloud for crop updates The system sells for 35 million yen (£265,000) in Japan. Granpa and Hitachi are still deciding how much to charge for the server-linked Cloud Computing service. The two companies are hoping to sell ten systems in Japan and may expand the business overseas to arid regions such as the Middle East and Africa. They say the system offers consistently high crop yields. Japanese farmers are coming under increasing pressure to improve productivity as the government considers entering the Trans Pacific Partnership, a free-trade zone that would stretch from China to Chile and include major agricultural exporters Australia and the United States.