The Futuristic Farms That Will Feed the World | Freethink | Future of Food

Amidst climate change, a growing population, and people consuming more of less sustainable food, how will we feed our future world? The answer may not be increasing resources--land, water, and employees--but rather improving production efficiency to create more sustainable farming of crops. The key question: How do we increase the amount of food we produce while using the same or fewer resources?

The Sustainable Development Roadmap from an Unexpected Superpower:

When it comes to scaling agricultural production sustainably, one small country has a very large impact. Bolstered by a national commitment to produce twice the amount of food with half the resources, the Netherlands has become the world’s #2 produce exporter. The close collaboration between the government, science organizations and the food industry have driven impressive innovation and an efficiency that’s unmatched anywhere else in the world.

On a normal open-field tomato farm, one could expect 4 kilograms of yield per square meter. In a high-tech greenhouse in the Netherlands, that number shoots up to 80 kilograms of yield per square meter, with 4X less water. That’s a 20X improvement on output! And it’s not just tomatoes--the Dutch are #1 in the world on producing chilis, green peppers, and cucumbers (measured by yield per square mile). With conservation and sustainable food as two of the most important global issues, could other countries copy their approach to help save the earth?

Sustainable Farming Practices Driven by AI

What is sustainability driven by? The technology behind these greenhouses allows for an extreme level of control over water, light, temperature, and CO2--all of which are finely tuned and optimized. Constant testing on countless variables is what drives these facilities and could be the future of our planet’s sustainable food systems. Tests can be as simple as comparing different hues of LEDs to increase tolerance against pests, or as advanced as a moth-killing drone.

In addition, eco friendly technology is simply getting better. More and more, efficient farming is becoming automated, using artificial intelligence to find the optimal conditions. By learning the behaviors of plants, climate computers can adjust conditions far better than a human.

Scaling Efficient Farming: It’s All About Knowledge Sharing

The Netherlands is not just thinking about the Netherlands. Besides leveraging technology in efficient ways, these innovators are exploring how to use their findings on a greater scale. For example, their greenhouses emulate climates across the world in order to optimize growth outside of the country. As they learn about what’s optimal in Columbia, for example, they can then transfer that knowledge and help build sustainable food systems across the earth. This level of big picture thinking could be a game-changer as we tackle global warming and climate change - one of society's greatest challenges in the coming years.

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[octavioayala]

People often get stuck on "we need to produce more" rather than we need to waste less. According to the USDA between 30-40 of the food supply becomes waste. This is where we need to start, we can feed more people with the current means of production we just need to increase availability

[garry]

Why is this video not about Regenerative Agriculture? I'll tell you why...big business can't profit from actual sustainability.

[joefreeman]

This can be one tool in our toolbox but there's no one size fits all for the whole world. We need diversity of ideas with sustainable practices in mind including small scale farming, organic farming, permaculture, native culture, old wisdom, new tech, back yard gardening, and so on.

[martijnkeulen]

I'm not really patriotic, but when I see things like this it makes me a proud Dutch man.

[joysandiego]

I live in the Netherlands & this is really the tip of the iceberg of what they are doing for a sustainable future. It's amazing to see all of this in action - esp from such a tiny country

[GrandFutureVisions]

This remind me of the first time the Netherlands came up with a “brilliant” agricultural revolution (super efficient stock breeding) that led to the situation we’re in now. Although we benefitted a lot from the new inventions, maybe we should consider the (long-term) consequence of a word wide expansion of these new techniques first this time....

I studie at the university of Wageningen where a lot of the efficient live stock production methods where researched, and now that the next big thing is coming partly from here I personally sense too little reflective behavior.

[colindevoe]

I want to live in the climate controlled grow houses! Winter on one side, summer on the other :)

[dhaval]

Thanks Neitherland they are solving problem they are not even going to face, It's going to be us Indians and Chinese so a very heart felt thanks

[SriYukteswarGiri]

What does the future look like when we grow our own vegetables again in the garden and finally become independent again !

[freethink]

What do you think the future of food will look like?

[trangcao]

I’m Vietnamese. I love watching this video. I wish i can move to your country to work in agriculture. Because i love planting vegetables. Your country has good agricultural technologies

[luiscastro]

This is pretty crazy when you think of industrial agriculture and waste and just how the chemicals go into the watershed etc. The tomato thing is insane. Where I live we have local green house tomatoes and the quality is better than imported but it costs X3 times as much for 1. Using this not only could we reduce wasted transportation but more people could eat better food. God bless you orange wearing dutch people!

[worldsojourner]

Thank you for the informative video. The outstanding yields are noteworthy and water usage is very low. But what about the total cost of inputs per kg of product? Additional factors also need to be considered to calculate the aggregate cost of producing the food (e.g., energy costs, labor, etc.)

[samuelpezzetta]

This channel deserves a much bigger audience. Brilliant content!

[blisswkc]

Thank y'all so much dearest 🌹
Y'all such an inspiration 🥰
Appreciate y'all from the bottom of my heart 💖
Be Blissful Eternally 🙏👼🌈

[PaulCreane]

Not much talk of insects, pollination and ecosystems.

[ForceLogic]

I would love to build this using that knowledge as self sufficient for homes. Imagine having a compact self sufficient farm/garden that could produce more then enough food for you and family. With little to no effort and easy maintenance uses their knowledge. I would totally invest.

[ferrydegrootify]

Exporting knowledge is the way to go, especially for a small country as The Netherlands.

[seajay]

Not hating on anything but, these things are expensive imagine how much energy is required to replicate the sun from LED lights. How much would it cost to actually make these greenhouses and when will it end up paying for itself. Also there is a lot of plastic involved in this which is going to harm the environment. Also in poor countries where there is hunger how are they going to get the resources to make these green houses.

[ninahees]

This is amazing in terms of resource use and inputs (water, land, nutrients etc.), but I'm curious on the energy use to power large scale, industrial greenhouses (i.e. for the tech used, lighting, temperature regulation etc.) compared to outdoor, traditional farming. In other words, is it also more energy efficient, and does it produce less greenhouse gases, to use such technologies? I mean this in the entire life-cycle, from production to transport.