Case study | In progress
Rebuilding a farm short on hands.
A worked example of turning a business around, using goat farming in Okinawa. The pattern: diagnosis → direction → the deciding factor → commitments → how we proceed.
Diagnosis: the more goats, the bigger the loss
The limit was not feed or demand, but people's time. Daily manure removal takes most of the labor, and once wages are counted, losses grow with herd size.
Animals are mostly sold whole at auction, before they can become higher-value sashimi.
- 1,045 farms · 9,129 goatsOkinawa herd (farms ▲5.3% YoY)Okinawa Prefecture livestock survey, Dec 2024
- 3,913→2,734Goats slaughtered in Okinawa (FY2022→FY2024)Okinawa Prefecture, Livestock in Okinawa 2025
- ~48 hoursLabor per breeding doe per yearOkinawa Prefecture goat farming indicators (2018)
Market: short supply, rising prices
As farmers retire, does and barns are becoming available, while sashimi-grade meat stays scarce and auction prices climb. The position to take: sashimi that never runs out, all year.
- ¥90,200→¥92,700Average male at the New Year auction (2025→2026)Ryukyu Shimpo, 2025-02-08 / 2026-02-07
- ¥10,000+ per kgSashimi-grade goat meat in OkinawaRyukyu Shimpo, 2024-11-29
Direction: three pillars
Question cost and process from first principles
Remove work before adding people: slatted floors for manure, a few machine mowings a year, and equipment built up from generic, used and self-made parts.
Invest in the key drivers, then consolidate
Spend only on what moves sashimi yield and animals shipped. Take over does and barns from farms that are closing.
Use AI fully
Consumer cameras and generative AI handle monitoring, records and admin, so people spend their time on care and decisions.
The deciding factor: sashimi per animal
Success depends almost entirely on how much sashimi each animal yields. Below a threshold, selling at auction is better. So the first trial weighs every animal: live weight, carcass, cuts and sashimi.
Ship by weight, not age; finish before shipping; castrate. None of these needs a large investment.
Set commitments and exit criteria first
Numeric commitments take effect only after the trial confirms the yield. If the bar isn't met, we don't scale, and outside funding has a cap, decided before we start.
Team
A local operator runs the farm, a community lead supports, and cyborg21 designs the business, its systems and the AI.
This is a public summary of a plan still under feasibility testing. Names, exact locations and financial projections are omitted; figures are public statistics with sources. Details may change. Note: Japan's health ministry advises that goat meat should not be eaten raw (expert panel, 2014-06-20).