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?
