A vegetable factory that plans to open in Kyoto in 2017 will be the first farm to be entirely run by robots. Japan’s Spread Co. LTD is set to prove that huge quantities of food can be grown without humans and that food production can be fully automated using robot-farmers ­– while profiting from 10 million lettuces a year. At 4,800 square metres (half the size of a football field), the futuristic farm will be the first without farmers, growing 80,000 heads of lettuce per day indoors vertically beneath LED lighting. It aims to expand this to 500,000 per day by 2020. ‘Agribots’ will automate the entire planting process from germination to seeding, harvesting and delivery, while also monitoring levels of carbon dioxide and lighting conditions. At the moment human farmers are currently needed for the seeding process as the seedlings are so fragile.