The world population is growing. Climate is changing. People are moving to the cities. Biodiversity is decreasing. Natural resources are becoming scarcer. Our current agricultural system isn’t designed for that.
With a world population of over 7 billion people and half of us living in the cities, only a small minority is involved in the production of their own food. The rest of us relies on those tasty Kiwis being shipped over from New Zealand or those yummy strawberries coming from South Africa while they’re out of season in Europe. What if we wouldn’t have to ship the New Zealand Kiwis all the way around the world? What if we could produce them right here in the Netherlands?
This is the idea of Caleb Harper, director of the Open Agriculture Initiative at MIT’s Media Lab. He and his team are working on developing an open-source food computer – “a controlled-environment agriculture technology platform that uses robotic systems to control and monitor climate, energy, and plant growth inside of a specialized growing chamber”. These specialized growing chambers look like greenhouses, only with the possibility of having several levels for growing fruits and veggies – one above the other. All kinds of variables that influence the growth of the individual plant can be changed via a computer including supply of carbon dioxide, humidity and the temperature around the roots.
Like this, you can replicate New Zealand climate in the Netherlands. As a matter of fact, you can also make up your very own climate. You can experiment with all sorts of climate variables to find out under which conditions your plants grow just the way you like them. And these “climate recipes” you can then share with all the other Open Agriculture farmers around the world.
The development of the Food Computer still is in its early stages. Instructions for building a second and improved version of the personal variant of the Food Computer are expected to become available soon. Meanwhile an enthusiastic community of agricultural hackers is sharing their experience with the first version and helping each other bringing this new technology forward.
Please check out Caleb Harper’s amazing TED Talk about the Food Computer.
https://www.ted.com/talks/caleb_harper_this_computer_will_grow_your_food_in_the_future?language=en
Also, do visit their website to learn more about building your own Food Computer:
http://openag.media.mit.edu/
What do you think? Would you be interested in building your own Food Computer? Do you agree that this technology will change the way even large food producers will grow our produce?
Hi Julia!
Urban farming is a very fascinating development in the agriculture industry. Besides the Open Agriculture Initiative from MIT, there are also some interesting Dutch initiatives pioneering the possibilities of urban farming. One example that would be comparable to Harper’s idea’s is the Amsterdam-based start up GrowX. Co-founded by a RSM alumnus, they develop and build vertical farms in order to grow fresh food in cities. GrowX is already operational and has just received a 1.5 million euros investment to execute a commercial pilot project. Their target is to eventually grow 180 tonnes of vegetables in Amsterdam annually.
I think one of the biggest issues concerning urban farming is how to scale up such a sustainable business model. Open Agriculture Initiative wants to localise global food production by developing their food computer platform. Since there are endless options regarding food preferences all over the world, combining this feature with scalability would be a very big challenge. It is interesting to follow this development and see what kind of solutions and adjustment they will come up with.
There is also one important thing that is not mentioned in your blog. Harper mentioned in his TED Talk that the idea of farming is not very attractive to society. With his initiative, he also wants to create more awareness among consumers about what the food they consume really is (more feeling with the product) and how their food is produced. Besides the development of technology behind urban farming, I think that changing the mindset of consumers would be the most important step to achieve a more sustainable food production.
Thank you for this interesting post!
Sources:
http://www.growx.co/
https://www.rsm.nl/about-rsm/news/detail/5333-EUR15-million-investment-for-rsm-vertical-farming-entrepreneur/