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One year ago, almost to the date, 
it was the 20th of April, 2014.

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This resupply mission from NASA

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delivered more than food
to the International Space Station;

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it delivered a way to grow food.

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Now, this would be the first time
that food, plants, grown in space

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are not used only for studies
but also for consumption.

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That's the arrival of space farming.

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Commander Steve Swanson
is in front of VEGGIE.

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VEGGIE is a mini greenhouse
that can produce lettuce

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just like this one,

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in space.

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It uses 10 times less water
than traditional agriculture,

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it takes less power
than a desktop computer,

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and to transport, it took
six times less space than to operate.

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Bringing anything to space from Earth
costs its weight in gold,

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so resources there are precious.

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Should we treat our natural 
resources the same way?

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When I look at the globe,

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I see Brazil, the country I was born,

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a country blessed
with many natural resources.

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Still, a few weeks ago, 
I read an article in the press

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about the severe drought
that's happening in São Paulo.

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São Paulo is a metropolitan area
with 27 million people.

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And they're having a drought

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that is one of the worst
for the past 100 years.

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Now, this journalist was asking this lady

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how she was going to cope
with the drought.

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Brazilians are known
to have several showers during the day.

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So he was asking her,
"Are you going to have less showers,

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or are you going to have
quicker showers?"

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Unfortunately, a second shower
is not the most pressing issue we have

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when we have water shortage.

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Every minute, around the world,
a child dies from water-related diseases.

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In 10 years, two-thirds of humanity
are expected to suffer

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from a form of water shortage.

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And this is not an
emerging-market problem only.

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OECD countries, industrialized nations,

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are expected to have
their water consumption grow

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by 65% by 2050.

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That's a lot faster
than the rest of the world.

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So, if we were to put
all the water in the world

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into one big droplet
right next to our planet,

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that's what it would look like.

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Of that, only one percent is fresh water.

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Of this one percent, two-thirds are frozen
on our polar caps and on our glaciers.

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And of what's left,
70% is used in agriculture.

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Water security is food security.

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But if we can farm
with less water in space,

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surely we can farm
more efficiently here on Earth.

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We can use some of these ideas.

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So, I lead a Swiss startup
called CombaGroup,

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and that's exactly what we
set out to do: efficient farming.

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This is our research
and development greenhouse,

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not far from here, from Lausanne.

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And we are growing salads out of earth.

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We spray a mix of nutrients and water
directly onto the roots,

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using a technology called aeroponics.

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What's not used is recycled.

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And for every kilo of salad we produce,
we save 180 liters of water.

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However, most salad
doesn't grow like this.

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So, I want to tell you
the story of a salad,

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from when it's born
to the end of its life,

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hopefully fulfilling its mission, 
which is to feed us.

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And to do that, I want to go back
to the place I came from

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before coming to Switzerland;
I want to go back to the UK.

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Now, I used to live in this lovely village
in the countryside of England,

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and it had a wonderful pub, a teahouse,
and a church, but not much else.

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And around, it had
a lot of fields for agriculture.

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Now, during the cold months,
particularly during winter,

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not much grew there,
but certainly not salad.

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Still, I could go to the nearest market
and I could buy fresh salad

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any time of the year.

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More than half the year, this salad
will be coming from the south of Spain;

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the two main places
are Murcia and Almería.

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They'll be driven 2,300 kilometers

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in the back of a truck
for over three days,

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and by the time they arrive in England,

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they'll have lost
more than half of their vitamin C.

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What's the impact on waste?

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What's the impact on the environment?

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Well, let's talk about waste first.

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Imagine these are 100 salads
growing on the field in Spain,

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trying to fulfill their mission.

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Seventeen will be lost
before they're harvested.

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Nine will make it to the shops

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but won't be purchased
because they don't look that good.

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And the biggest amount of waste
will happen at home.

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We throw away 45% of the salad we buy.

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Why do we do this?

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Why do we pay for it and throw it away?

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The main reason is short shelf life.

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It goes past its expiry date,

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it smells bad, it tastes bad,
so we throw it away.

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So, the days it's been traveling
in the back of a truck

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are important days
that they could be with us.

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And if we could cut the level of waste
we have with salads by 50 percent

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and make it, instead of
the number one in food waste,

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the number two in food waste -

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which isn't a great track record -

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we could save 300 liters of water
for every kilo of salad we eat.

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Now, that's enough for that lady
to have a second shower

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every day of the week for one week.

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Unfortunately, these salads
don't grow in Brazil; they grow in Spain.

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And water reserves in Spain, per capita,

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are 12 times smaller
than the water reserves in Brazil.

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These salads grow in one of
the most arid places of Europe.

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In the south of Spain, they have
half the average rainfall of Spain.

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They have six times less rainfall
than we have in the UK.

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Still, they export the equivalent
of 100 million cubic meters of water

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in the form of salads
to other countries in Europe.

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What should we do?

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Should we stop eating salad
when it's wintertime?

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Water reserves in the UK, per capita,
are more or less the same as in Spain.

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And salads, lettuce, is one of the most
water-efficient crops we can have.

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If we replace one kilo of salad
by one kilo of potato,

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we'll be using twice as much water.

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If you want a little milk,
it's eight times more water.

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If you want a kilo of beef,
that's 15,000 liters of water,

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as opposed to 200 liters of water

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that is required
to grow one kilo of lettuce.

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Furthermore, there's a lot of sunshine
in the south of Spain.

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That's why we go there for holidays.

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It's twice as much sunshine
than we get in the UK.

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And plants need light and heat to grow.

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So, if we were to grow these plants
in a greenhouse in the UK

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and use electricity to light
and heat this greenhouse,

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we would spend more money
and emit more carbon

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than actually we do bringing them
by truck all the way from Spain.

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So this seems to be the most efficient way
for us to eat salad all year round.

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But is that how an astronaut
would look at the problem?

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We saw how we could grow salad
with 10 times less water.

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Well, we can also start
by using light that's more efficient.

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We can give the plants
only the colors they need: red and blue.

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That's why you see
the purple light in the picture.

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Now, these salads, they grow in the air.

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And when they're small,
we can huddle them closely together

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and gradually give them
more space as they grow.

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That way, we can produce
two times more salad per square meter

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than we would in the field

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and use the energy from the light
and heating more efficiently.

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We could also use waste heat
to warm up the greenhouse.

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Here in Switzerland,

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we are going to build
a large-scale project

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right next to a bio-gas plant.

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Now, this power plant
throws away heat and CO2

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as a byproduct of energy production.

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These resources are precious.

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We'll connect our greenhouse
to this power plant

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and warm it up during winter,

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also using the CO2
to accelerate plant growth.

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By doing that, the carbon footprint
we have per kilo produced

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is five times lower

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than doing the same thing
on the field here in Switzerland.

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However, energy footprint in the UK

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is 70 times higher
than what we have in Switzerland.

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There are a lot of renewables here,

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and we burn a lot of coal in the UK
to generate electricity.

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So would that math also work
for the same ideas, in Britain?

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In fact,

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we could produce, during winter,
with the same CO2 footprint

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that the field can produce
during summer in the UK

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and even lower during winter
when we don't need to light them up,

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to complement the light -

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but furthermore, we could provide
a product that's fresher,

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locally produced, and hopefully, 
reduce the amount of waste,

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reducing the carbon footprint
per kilo consumed,

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and bringing it to less than half
of what we have right now

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importing food from Spain.

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Ultimately, we throw more food away
than we consume, today.

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This is happening right now.

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We're growing these plants
right next to you.

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We will be serving the salad today
so we'll be able to taste it.

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And if you could replace
only 10% of the food imports in the world,

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that would be enough

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to offset the carbon footprint
for one million people

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and would save enough water

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for 30 million people to have a shower
every day during the year -

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the whole of São Paulo and the people.

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We could even bring the salad
alive to our kitchens,

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extending space farming
all the way to our homes,

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have a product that has
a longer shelf life, more vitamins,

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and reducing waste,
therefore saving our natural resources.

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This is our team.

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We try to dress like astronauts.

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We try to think like astronauts.

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But what we learn
from astronauts about farming

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is that we can farm with less water,
less energy, and less waste,

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and by doing that,

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we can have food that's fresher, 
healthier, and better for the planet.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)