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Can Robots Save Japan’s Aging Cherry Blossom Farmers?

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The color of the cherry blossom hovers between pink and white. The blooms peak briefly. It’s hard to explain why Japanese love the sakura. But they do, deeply.

Robots do not appreciate the soft evanescence of the sakura. Nor do they understand why a snowbound town in northern Japan has dedicated itself to the cultivation of a winter variety.

But the residents of Nishikawa have discovered — at least they thought they had discovered — that they need robots for their sakura. There are not enough workers in town. The average age of a Nishikawa farmer is 73. Who else will work in the most depopulated town in one of the most depopulated prefectures in one of the most depopulated nations on earth, if not for an amalgamation of aluminum, steel and hard plastic?

“We had to do something,” said Mitsuya Kaneko, the head of the Nishikawa cherry blossom farmers’ union, whose parents, aged 75 and 84, still plod through the snow to prune and package winter sakura in a largely unheated shed. “We cannot just die out.”

Mr. Kaneko, at 53 years old, is tech savvy. He pushes his glasses down his nose to peer at his iPhone from which he can check the temperature and humidity of his sakura orchards, as well as catch a livestream of cherry trees being cherry trees. After watching his hometown shrink and its farmers stoop ever steeper with age, Mr. Kaneko worked with the local government to bring technology to Nishikawa.

The residents of Nishikawa are dedicated to growing a winter variety of sakura, or cherry blossoms, that are beloved by the Japanese.

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