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it might look like we're inside a
spaceship
but this is actually a farm
the crops here are grown mostly by
machines with the help of just a few
humans
like this woman
her life offers an early peek at a new
kind of farming
it's a promising twist to an ancient
career
but only if the robots don't replace her
altogether
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as technology replaces old jobs it's
also creating new ones
i'm aki ito and i'm here to show you the
jobs of the future
my name is katie morich and i'm a
vertical farmer
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katie works for a three-year-old startup
called bowery
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its farm is here in this industrial park
in new jersey
it's the last place you'd expect to find
any sign of life
we take extra precaution to make sure
we're not bringing any contaminants into
the farm so we're going to wear hair
nets
and then this is just going to cover all
your street clothes
katie wears a clean uniform every day
visitors like me are handed a
non-negotiable jumpsuit
all right
step inside and you'll see a cross
between a factory and a lab
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trays of produce are vertically stacked
to save space and each of them is given
just the right amount of light water and
nutrients at the optimal temperature and
humidity
it's an incredible level of precision
which is why katie can grow more faster
with less water and no pesticides
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it's also what lets her grow things that
taste like nothing you've ever had
before
what's this
that's
the sorrel
that tastes like candy apple
whoa
it's so sour i know
the majority of this facility is
automated
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the data is collected by sensors and a
computer controls growing conditions for
the crops
for the things that the machines can't
do yet katie and her fellow human
farmers fill in
and even those tasks are dictated by the
software that runs this whole operation
it lets me know what i have to do what
time i should be doing it by and that's
how i get my day done do you ever like
rebel against the computer's orders um
once in a while if we're trying to do a
little experiment of our own i'd be like
okay is this system telling us the
correct thing most the time it is all
the time it's right
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after a full day at the farm katie likes
to bring home samples to her husband
jace
and her cat burn
salt pepper
garlic
on the menu are two items from katie's
farm basil for pesto pasta
that's so good and mixed greens for a
salad i'm terrified everyone's judging
cheers guys
katie fell in love with environmental
science in college but after graduating
she struggled to find a full-time career
in the field
jace had to deal with me a lot
you know coming home to me crying and
trying to
figure out if i'm making the right
decisions
and then
somehow online bowery popped up
she told me about this job like bowery
farming it's like an indoor vertical
farm and i was like all right this
sounds like total bs
so
i took my work truck and i said you know
what let me swing around and see what
this is all about so i drove up to it
doesn't look like there's a farm in
there at all so like i called her and i
was like listen i know like you're
psyched about this job but it seems
super sketchy
but i figured i'd go and check it out
for myself and i pulled up and it was
exactly as how he described but i gave
it a shot
and so in 2017 katie joined bowery
she became employee number nine
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this is really my first real full-time
big girl job
and it was a little intimidating at
first coming to this company with people
that have like their phd and i don't
necessarily have that background
so
i constantly doubted myself when i first
started at bowery
i wasn't worried about her at all you
know
she said to us can i do this
and i used to tell her to have a little
faith in herself
katie grew up in a typical new jersey
suburb with two working parents
they've tried to stay away from putting
too much pressure on their only child
when we heard about what she was doing
and realized that this is something that
didn't exist when we were younger and i
thought back from my generation
you know pcs came out when i started
working
and my parents probably would have said
i was crazy if i went into an i.t field
at the time but now look what happened
so it's not a good idea for us to try to
tell her what to do because it's a
different world
bowery is backed by some of silicon
valley's top investors and with almost
30 million dollars of funding the
startup is expanding fast
and in may after all that time she spent
doubting herself katie got promoted to
lead a team of her own farmers
the produce she grows supplies a few
nearby grocery stores
as well as this restaurant in manhattan
it's less than 10 miles away from the
bowery farm
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what do you think
i'm delicious
you made that
it's like crazy to see
stuff i grew on a plate
but for katie it's not just about making
premium vegetables for people who can
afford them i want people to have the
purest
produce imaginable and i want that to be
readily available to anybody
the world's population is set to reach
9.8 billion people by 2050.
two-thirds will live in cities
and we're going to need all kinds of new
technology to sustainably feed everyone
the key to making that food affordable
is to continue to make more with fewer
farmers
but no matter how high tech all this
gets katie thinks there will still be a
place for her i just think there's
something about the human mind that you
can't really replicate so i think we can
still work closely with technology but i
still think it's nice you know to have a
human there it's also be pretty lonely
for the robots if they don't have
anybody to talk to
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you