Name: Can we create the "perfect" farm? - Brent Loken
Uploaded: 2020-10-18T14:31:25.000Z
Duration: 7 min 10 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Transcriber: TED Translators Admin Reviewer: Mirjana Čutura

About 10,000 years ago, humans began to farm.

This agricultural revolution was a turning point in our history

that enabled people to settle, build and create.

In short, agriculture enabled the existence of civilization.

Today, approximately 40 percent of our planet is farmland.

these agricultural lands are the pieces to a global puzzle

in the future, how can we feed every member of a growing population

nothing short of a second agricultural revolution.

was characterized by expansion and exploitation,

feeding people at the expense of forests, wildlife and water

and destabilizing the climate in the process.

That's not an option the next time around.

with predictable seasons and weather patterns.

This means we can't keep expanding our agricultural lands,

because doing so will undermine the environmental conditions

that make agriculture possible in the first place.

Instead, the next agricultural revolution

will have to increase the output of our existing farmland for the long term

while protecting biodiversity, conserving water

and reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

This drone is part of a fleet that monitors the crops below.

but is a delicately engineered use of the land

that intertwines crops and livestock with wild habitats.

Conventional farming methods cleared large swathes of land

and emitting huge amounts of greenhouse gases in the process.

This approach aims to correct that damage.

teams of field robots apply fertilizer in targeted doses.

hundreds of sensors gather data on nutrients and water levels.

This information reduces unnecessary water use

and tells farmers where they should apply more and less fertilizer

instead of causing pollution by showering it across the whole farm.

But the farms of the future won't be all sensors and robots.

These technologies are designed to help us produce food

taking into account the nuances of local ecosystems.

Lower-cost agricultural practices can also serve those same goals

and are much more accessible to many farmers.

In fact, many such practices are already in use today

and stand to have an increasingly large impact

farmers have intertwined farmland with tropical habitat so successfully

that they have significantly contributed to doubling the country's forest cover.

This provides food and habitat for wildlife

as well as natural pollination and pest control

from the birds and insects these farms attract,

producing food while restoring the planet.

ranchers are raising cattle on grasslands composed of native species,

using production methods that store carbon and protect biodiversity.

may dramatically decrease greenhouse gas emissions in the future.

Rice is a staple food for three billion people

and the main source of livelihood for millions of households.

More than 90 percent of rice is grown in flooded paddies,

and release 11 percent of annual methane emissions,

of total annual greenhouse gas emissions globally.

By experimenting with new strains of rice,

and adopting less labor-intensive ways of planting seeds,

have already increased their incomes and crop yields

while cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions.

numerous organizations are investing in locally specific methods

to improve crop production, reduce forest loss

and improve livelihoods for local farmers.

These efforts are projected to increase crop yield

by almost a quarter over the next few decades.

If combined with methods to combat deforestation in the region,

toward a resilient, climate-focused agricultural sector.

where up to 40 percent of post-harvest food is lost or wasted

farmers have already started to implement solar-powered cold storage capsules

that help thousands of rural farmers preserve their produce

and become a viable part of the supply chain.

from the most high-tech to the lowest-cost,

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Can we create the "perfect" farm? - Brent Loken

process

improve

unprecedented

staple