On July 9, 2026, OpenAI publicly highlighted Hiroki Tomiyasu, a broccoli farmer running a roughly 100-hectare farm in Hokkaido, who has automated his operations using the new GPT-5.6 model. The showcase coincided with the general availability of the GPT-5.6 series the same day.
July 9, 2026 · OpenAI Showcase
A Broccoli Farmer Automated a 100-Hectare Farm — With No Engineering Background
Hokkaido grower Hiroki Tomiyasu used ChatGPT and Codex to build his own greenhouse controls, crop-disease detection and farm bots — the same day OpenAI released the GPT-5.6 series worldwide.
~100 ha
Farm size automated by a single non-engineer
0
Engineers hired — a former civil servant built it all
24 h
GPT-5.6 rolled out globally starting July 9
GPT-5.6 tiers — output price per 1M tokens
$6
Luna
Fastest & cheapest
Three tiers — Sol, Terra, Luna — with input at $5 / $2.50 / $1 per 1M tokens. All support prompt caching.
Built from off-the-shelf parts + AI code generation
ESP32 + LINE Bot
→
Cloudflare Workers
→
Airtable
→
Remote greenhouse control
Remotely control greenhouse roll-up motor via LINE chat
Generate wiring diagrams from photos of electrical panels
Upload disease photos for instant diagnosis and countermeasures
Maps overlaid with satellite field data; seeding amounts from chat history
In his words
"It feels as if a world-class engineer is always right next to me — like hiring an engineer."
Seen as an example of AI not taking jobs away, but putting expert-level tools in everyone's hands.
THE UPSIDE
Automation that once needed costly dedicated gear or specialist engineers is now achievable at low cost — reducing physical burden and boosting efficiency.
THE CAVEAT
AI-generated code still needs safety verification, and hardware integration requires on-site adjustment — shared transparently as ongoing trial and error.
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