Name: 【TEDx】TEDxBrainport 2012 - Gertjan Meeuws - Indoor farming, Plant Paradise
Uploaded: 2015-06-10T12:00:56.000Z
Duration: 9 min 7 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...

There are quite  some misconceptions about growing

and today I would like to help you to overcome

So the first misconception is  that we can keep feeding

with the existing agricultural technology.

from 7 billion to 9 billion,  and that we are moving

To produce enough food for all these people,

we will create new land  for growing food in sub‑optimal conditions.

In those conditions, plants are not very happy,  and they will become ill.

We will take more and more pesticides,  chemicals, to treat them.

Another thing: even if our trucks  would run on water in future,

35 % of the trucks on the road are busy transporting

food or food parts from A to B,  and probably, in the end, back to A.

So we have to change the way  that we feed the world today.

The second misconception:  we must make plants adapt to nature.

This is not true. In nature,  and even in the best Dutch greenhouses,

plants only use 9 % of their potentiality.

So plants are so very smart  that they are able to adapt any circumstances

in order to survive.  They can do that with very little

of their potentiality. But that opens  a lot of possibilities for us.

If we would know how to make plants  really happy, they are able to bring

much more to us. We started back in 1989,  23 years ago, studying plants

as they grow in the fields, in greenhouses. We have worked for almost

10 years on producing mathematical models, in order to understand them.

The more we understood about plants,  the more we started to see

The third misconception is,  this is paradise for plants.

It's not true ‑‑ this is paradise for us.  If plants were to choose,

they would say, "This is paradise."  Plants don't like sunlight.

They have used to live under the sunlight,  but the only light

that they take up from the sunlight is red and blue,  and a little far red.

So this is what plant paradise really looks like.  It's a merger of plant

physiological know‑how and high technology.  We give plants only red,

blue and far red LED light,  and we combine that with very sophisticated

climate control. By doing so,  we are able to grow crops in this kind of buildings.

We call this a plant production unit. It's a multi‑layer

production unit and we can make it multi‑layer,

In the unit itself,  there is only this mixture of red and blue.

And in front of the unit where the people are working,  of course there is daylight,

or white light. Otherwise, you couldn't see the real colors of the crops.

If we would have to produce 200 grams of fresh vegetables

it only takes one square meter in this sort of building.

So in order to feed 100,000 citizens,  it would only take a plant production unit

the size of 100 times 100 meters, in 10 layers.

And if you take a closer look at the production unit, this way of producing

enables us to be totally secure and safe.

Without changing anything about the genetics,

but just by optimizing the environment  where plants are living,

we can make them more beautiful and even more nutritious.

And we can secure a very great taste,  much better than we were used to.

We are able to improve the yields  by two, three times the best greenhouse.

And even 30-40 times compared to the open field.  And very important,

we are able to save at least 90 % on the water use.

The big gift to us was that we never had  any pests or diseases.

So it appears to be true that  when plants are very happy, they never get ill.

They are not susceptible to pests and diseases,

That also solves the fourth misconception:

Growing food is done horizontally and takes a lot of water and pesticides.

It's not true. We are able to grow any crop.

It doesn't matter if it's tomatoes,  lettuce, strawberries, cucumbers.

We can do anything ‑‑ even medicines ‑‑  medical herbs, for instance.

And this is a plant production unit  that we have built over two years ago.

And it's up and running now 24/7  for more than 100 weeks.

It works perfectly  and we are able to control these units long distance,

by uploading growing recipes automatically.

Those growing recipes  take care of every minute set point

to grow perfect lettuce, perfect tomatoes,  and even guaranteeing

that the nitrate content of that lettuce is very low.

As you see, they are really green  when they come out.

The fifth misconception is that food must grow  where nature is kind to it,

and then we transport it.  That's why we grow 10,000 hectares of tomatoes

in the south of Spain  and then we transport these tomatoes to Moscow,

for instance. We have to harvest them five days prior

Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to be transported.

But that is very bad for taste and nutrition.

So we want to grow them just where we live,  where the consumers are.

We want to change foodmiles into foodsteps.

We want to go back to the old concept  where we consume food

that is just harvested. That makes a lot of difference.