[Music]
over the next two decades a
technological wave will revolutionize
the efficiency of farms all over the
world it can't come soon enough by the
year 2050 the human population will be
nearly 10 billion which means we'll need
to have doubled the amount of food we
now produce this is an examination of
the agricultural innovations coming down
the pipeline that will help get us there
the industry has undergone major
developments over the last century 100
years ago farming looked like this today
it looks like this and tomorrow it'll
look something like this these changes
have allowed many of us to do other
things with our lives in 1900 about 11
million agricultural workers produced
the food for 76 million people today
just 6.5 million workers feed 320 1.4
million Americans two factors were most
responsible for the surge in
productivity engines and the widespread
availability of electricity today the
innovations on our immediate horizon
include autonomous pickers UK
researchers have already created one
that gathers strawberries twice as fast
as humans the challenge will be creating
robotic Pickers that can switch between
all kinds of crops robots or drones that
can precisely remove weeds or shoot them
with the targeted spritz of pesticide
using 90% less chemicals than the
conventional blanket sprayer for the
organic farmer they could zap the weeds
with a laser instead this could have a
big impact the UN estimates that each
year between 20 and 40 percent of global
crop yields are destroyed by pests and
disease tiny sensors and cameras will
monitor crop growth and alert farmers on
their smartphones if there's a problem
or when it's the best time to harvest
the bounty Rob can take a soil sample
liquidize it then analyze its pH and
phosphorous levels all in real time as a
proof of concept for all this autonomous
farming technology researchers at Harper
Adams in the UK plan to grow and harvest
an entire hectare of barley without
humans ever entering the field companies
like egg robotics have already
commercialized software that analyzes
drone captured infrared images to spot
unhealthy vegetation then like a
real-life game of sim farmer the grower
is alerted on their
vice when a troubled area is identified
machine learning is regularly improving
the system's ability to differentiate
between varieties of crops and the weeds
that threaten them not to be left out a
company called Mavericks contracts 100
pilots to fly light aircraft that are
outfitted with multispectral cameras on
data gathering missions over large farms
throughout the country for an even wider
view planet Labs operates a fleet of
cube SATs that take weekly images of
entire farms from space to help monitor
crops other companies are creating
analytics software to act as farm
management systems allowing growers of
all sizes to deal with this new tsunami
of data and the farmers Business Network
combines data from many farms into one
giant pool to give its members the power
of macro level insights that have
traditionally only been available to
corporate mega farms vertical farms are
essentially warehouses with stacks of
hydroponic systems to grow leafy greens
they're sprouting up in cities all over
the world where fresh produce and land
is scarce the key obstacle here is the
cost of energy and the tall using a lot
of it takes on the environment the
upside is that artificial lights and
climate-controlled buildings allow crops
to grow day and night year-round
producing a significantly higher yield
per square foot than an outdoor farm for
now though only expensive leafy greens
like lettuce or herbs like basil have
proven profitable in the vertical system
and the jury is definitely still out on
whether this is truly an environmentally
friendly technique one possible solution
is to use blue and red light wavelengths
to optimize photosynthesis and turbo
boost growth a technique tested by
researchers at project growing
underground and experimental farm
operating in Old World War two bomb
shelters underneath London another
advancement in indoor farming is the
open agriculture initiative which aims
to create a catalogue of climates so
temperature and humidity can be set to
recreate the perfect conditions for
growing crops that would normally come
from all over the world locally instead
this is an attempt to tackle the food
miles issue when produce is shipped
around
the world it creates unnecessary co2
emissions just look at where a few of
the items you'll eat today were
cultivated to understand how big of a
problem this is the millions of people
entering the middle class every year in
developing countries are demanding tens
of millions of pounds of additional meat
these ideas aim to get the most from
every animal who would have thought
fitbit's could be for livestock
- cows are being fitted with smart
collars that monitor if they're sick or
if they're moving around more which is a
sign of fertility
researchers at Scotland's rural College
are analyzing cow breath exhaled ketones
and sulfides reveal potential problems
with an animal's diet thermal imaging
cameras spot inflamed utters to provide
earlier treatment to combat a bacterial
infection known as mastitis one of the
costliest setbacks in the dairy industry
3d cameras quickly measure the weight
and muscle mass of cattle so they're
sold at their beefiest companies have
even begun positioning microphones above
pig pens to detect coughs giving sick
animals the treatment they need a full
12 days earlier than before less
antibiotics are used if fewer animals
become ill first shorter lengths of time
and the system of just three cameras
developed by researchers in Belgium
tracks the movement of thousands of
chickens to analyze their behavior and
spot over 90% of possible problems
here's a stat that I found eye-opening
consumption of farmed fish has now
surpassed our consumption of beef and
researchers are working to increase the
types of fish that are raised
aquaculture ists at the institute of
marine and environmental technology in
baltimore are developing an artificial
eco system that mimics ocean conditions
so that saltwater fish farms can be
built inland
this would allow millions of landlocked
people to be able to enjoy fresh fish
instead of consuming frozen fish grown
or caught on the coast that have to be
shipped thousands of miles and
refrigerated trucks that use a lot of
energy the most exciting thing about
this experimental fish farm is that it's
actually a closed system that creatively
uses three sets of bacteria in different
ways so it doesn't produce any waste and
even powers itself
this is the world's most sustainably
produced fish it's the system is
completely and fully contained there is
zero interaction with the environment
there is no waste it's zero waste goes
back to the environment which is the big
problem with aqua project today this
revolutionary technique could be
critical for saving species in the wild
like rapidly depleting bluefin tuna
populations without curbing the
appetites of sushi lovers like me
another ingenious approach from a
company in California are proteinaceous
fish food pellets made from the bodies
of a bacteria that grow by consuming a
combination of methane oxygen and
nitrogen the UN's Food and Agriculture
Organization estimates that two billion
people consume insects as part of their
diet
bugs are among the cheapest most
nutritious environmentally-friendly
sources of protein so there's a growing
movement to find new ways to incorporate
them into food products that can be
marketed in a way that doesn't gross
people out some examples are protein
powder and insect flour but even if
insects never make it onto many of our
plates they can still help us a lot as
animal feed on the other end of the
alternative protein spectrum is
lab-grown meat in 2013 the first
hamburger was made from muscle cells
grown in a lab in the Netherlands
followed by a meatball grown by a
California company called Memphis meets
these grabbed headlines but production
costs need to come way down before will
be buying synthetic meats in significant
quantities it's better for the
environment and we eat
actually producing so that we can
produce much more meat with much less
resources so that we can feed the entire
planet and we'll probably look back at
this time as sort of barbaric that we
still killed animals and used animals to
such a degree for our meat consumption
human survival on earth has by necessity
driven us to use and change the world
around us some of our most powerful
innovations are aimed at solving
problems we ourselves create as climate
patterns change and human population
rises the prospect of a global food
shortage becomes increasingly dire it's
a threat that even the deployment of
millions of autonomous farmer BOTS would
be unlikely to solve but where man-made
machines may fall short
bacterial machines may very well prevail
bringing me to the technology that can
continue to deliver the biggest
increases in crop yield
genetic modification scientific
breakthroughs like CRISPR genomic
selection and snips now allow single
letters within a gene to be precisely
edited unlike older methods of genetic
manipulation like transgenic
modifications that made uncontrolled
alterations to large regions of DNA
CRISPR a gene editing system repurposed
from bacteria more closely mimics the
process of random mutation this process
is critical for environmental adaptation
Darwinian natural selection and
ultimately evolution while this fact
alone may not placate the most
passionate anti-gmo advocate highly
precise techniques like CRISPR should
help ease legitimate health and
environmental concerns that have thus
far curbed significant commercial
investments but not everyone is sitting
on the sidelines two large agricultural
companies DuPont and Syngenta have used
genome selection to develop to new
drought tolerant strains of corn called
aqua Max and artesian then there's the
next gen cassava project led by Cornell
University in partnership with research
institutes all over Africa that aims to
quote significantly increased the rate
of genetic improvement in cassava
breeding to unlock the full potential of
the staple crop
that's central to food security and
livelihoods across Africa genetically
improving the cultivation of other crops
that haven't been modified yet could
additionally lead to huge yield
increases from millet and yams for
example rice one of the world's most
important crops has seen its yield
plateau meaning that for years now the
maximum amount that can be grown on say
an acre of land has not increased the
sea floor rice project a massive global
collaboration between 18 biology labs
spread across four continents is trying
to change that their goal is to
genetically engineer a new strain of
rice so that its photosynthetic process
works more like maize which would
theoretically turbo boost its yield by
50% and of course it's not just crops
pig lines for example are being altered
to make them immune to an illness that
costs American farmers 600 million
dollars a year well it's hard to predict
which of these developments will have
the greatest impact on food production
and we should be pursuing all of them
the use of genetic technologies will
inevitably prove essential for tackling
what would likely be an insurmountable
challenge sustainably doubling our
global food supply the good news is that
some of the world's most creative
scientists engineers farmers and
innovators are working on solutions for
this problem even as you watch this
video this piece was based on articles
that recently appeared in The Economist
and the journal Nature and our recent
video on India's highway mega project
led some of you to suggest other
projects for us to look into your
suggestions for video topics are always
appreciated thanks for watching until
next time for TDC I'm Bryce plank