0:00:00.750,0:00:02.643
In the early months of the pandemic,

0:00:02.667,0:00:05.059
chef José Andrés circulated two photos

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that have come to symbolize[br]a modern American food crisis.

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The first shows mountains of potatoes

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that have been left to rot[br]in a field in Idaho.

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The restaurants and cafeterias[br]and stadiums that had consumed them

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were shuttered during the pandemic.

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The second shows a devastating scene[br]outside of the San Antonio food bank.

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Thousands of carloads of people lined up,

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waiting for food with not enough[br]supply to go around.

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"How is it possible these two photos[br]exist at the same time,

0:00:34.833,0:00:36.101
in the most prosperous

0:00:36.125,0:00:40.393
and technologically advanced[br]moment in our history," tweeted Andrés.

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In the months after[br]the photos were published,

0:00:43.583,0:00:45.292
the crisis got worse.

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Billions of pounds of potatoes[br]and other fresh produce

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were chucked by American farmers.

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At the same time,

0:00:53.125,0:00:56.078
food banks all over the country[br]were reporting demand increases

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and 40 percent were facing[br]critical shortfalls.

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Outside the US,

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especially in the Middle East[br]and throughout Southeastern Africa,

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COVID-19 was paralyzing food systems[br]that were already vulnerable.

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Oxfam has predicted[br]that by the end of 2020

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12,000 people per day could die[br]of hunger related to COVID.

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That's more than the highest[br]daily mortality rate

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recorded so far.

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But what's worse

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and what's much more[br]concerning to all of us

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is that COVID is just one[br]of many major disruptions

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that have been predicted

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in the years and decades ahead.

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More chronic and complex[br]than the pressures of COVID

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are the pressures of climate change.

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And those of you who live in California[br]have seen this on your farms.

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You've seen withering heat[br]and drought and fires

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disrupt avocado and almond[br]and citrus and strawberry farms.

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This summer, we saw[br]the devastating impacts of storms

0:01:57.333,0:01:59.893
on corn and soy farms.

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I've seen the various[br]pressures of drought,

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heat, flooding, superstorms,

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invasive insects, bacterial blight,

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shifting seasons and weather volatility

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from Washington to Florida,

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and from Guatemala to Australia.

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The upshot is this.

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Climate change is becoming[br]something we can taste.

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This is a kitchen-table issue[br]in the literal sense.

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The International Panel on Climate Change

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has predicted that by mid-century

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the world may reach a threshold[br]of global warming

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beyond which current[br]agricultural practices

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can no longer support[br]large human civilizations.

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The USDA scientist Jerry Hatfield[br]put it to me this way:

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the single biggest threat[br]of climate change

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is the collapse of food systems.

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The reality we face,

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one that was exposed[br]by those mountains of potatoes

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and the cars lined up during the pandemic,

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is that our supply chains are antiquated.

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Our food systems have not been designed

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to adapt to major disruptions[br]or preempt them.

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Addressing this challenge[br]as much as any other

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is going to define our progress[br]in the coming century.

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But there's good news.

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And the good news is that farmers[br]and entrepreneurs and academics

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are radically rethinking[br]national and global food systems.

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They are marrying principles[br]of old-world agroecology

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and state-of-the-art technologies

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to create what I call[br]a third way to our food future.

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We're going to see radical changes

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in what we grow and how we eat[br]in the coming decades,

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as these environmental and population

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and public health pressures intensify.

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I studied these changes[br]for my book "The Fate of Food:

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What We'll Eat in a Bigger,[br]Hotter, Smarter World."

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I traveled for five years[br]into the lands and the minds

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and the machines that are shaping[br]the future of food.

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My travels took me[br]through 15 countries and 18 states,

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from apple orchards in Wisconsin[br]to tiny cornfields in Kenya,

0:04:02.083,0:04:03.976
to massive Norwegian fish farms

0:04:04.000,0:04:06.976
and computerized foodscapes in Shanghai.

0:04:07.000,0:04:08.726
I investigated new ideas,

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like robotics and CRISPR[br]and vertical farms.

0:04:12.417,0:04:17.684
And old ideas, like edible insects[br]and permaculture and ancient plants.

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I began to see the emergence[br]of this third way to food production.

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A synthesis of the traditional[br]and the radically new.

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There's a growing controversy

0:04:28.042,0:04:31.851
about the best path[br]to future food security in the US.

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Food is ripe for reinvention,[br]Bill Gates has proclaimed.

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Huge flows of investment

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are funding new methods of climate-smart[br]and high-tech agriculture.

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But many sustainable food advocates[br]bristle at this idea of reinvention.

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They want food deinvented.

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They argue for a return to preindustrial

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and pre-green revolution,

0:04:54.458,0:04:57.393
biodynamic and organic farming.

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To which skeptics inevitably respond,

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"Nice, but does it scale?

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Sure, a return to traditional[br]farming methods

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could produce better food,

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but can it produce enough food[br]that's affordable?"

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The rift between the reinvention camp[br]and the deinvention camp

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has existed for decades.

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But now it's a raging battle.

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One side covets the past,

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the other side covets the future

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and as someone observing this[br]from the outside,

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I began to wonder,[br]why must it be so binary?

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Can't there be a synthesis[br]of the two approaches?

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Our challenge is to borrow[br]from the wisdom of the ages,

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and from our most advanced science,

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to forge this third way.

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One that allows us[br]to improve and scale our harvests,

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while restoring rather than degrading

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the underlying web of life.

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I belong to neither camp.

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I'm a failed vegan[br]and a lapsed vegetarian,

0:05:52.917,0:05:54.934
and a terrible backyard farmer.

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If I'm honest,

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I will keep trying at this,[br]but I may fail.

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But I'm hell-bent on hope,

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and if my travels have taught me anything,

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it's that there's good reason for hope.

0:06:06.000,0:06:07.518
Plenty of solutions are merging

0:06:07.542,0:06:10.309
that can help build sustainable,[br]resilient food systems.

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Even if we can't rely on a critical mass

0:06:12.833,0:06:16.101
of backyard-farming vegetarians[br]to do this on their own,

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from the ground up.

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Let's start with artificial[br]intelligence and robotics.

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Jorge Heraud is a Peruvian-born engineer

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who now lives in Silicon Valley,

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and his company developed[br]a robotic weeder named See and Spray,

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and I went to Arkansas to see[br]the maiden voyage of See and Spray.

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And I was half expecting[br]a battalion of C3PO-style robots

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to march into the fields[br]with pincer hands to pluck the weeds.

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And instead, I found this.

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A tractor with a big, white[br]hoop skirt off the back of it.

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And inside that hoop skirt are 24 cameras

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that use computer vision[br]to see the ground beneath

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and to distinguish between[br]the plants and the weeds.

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And to deploy with sniper-like precision

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these tiny jets[br]of concentrated fertilizer,

0:07:02.750,0:07:04.143
or herbicide,

0:07:04.167,0:07:06.768
that incinerate the baby weeds.

0:07:06.792,0:07:09.351
I learned how robotics[br]can end the practice

0:07:09.375,0:07:13.393
of broadcast spraying chemicals[br]across millions of acres of land

0:07:13.417,0:07:16.226
and how we can reduce[br]the use of herbicides

0:07:16.250,0:07:18.351
by up to 90 percent.

0:07:18.375,0:07:20.976
But the bigger picture[br]is even more exciting.

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Intelligent machines[br]can treat plants individually,

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applying not just herbicides

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but fungicides and insecticides

0:07:27.917,0:07:33.101
and fertilizers on a plant-by-plant,[br]rather than field-by-field basis.

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So that eventually,

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this kind of hyperspecific farming

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can allow for more diversity[br]and intercropping on fields.

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And big farms can begin[br]to mimic natural systems

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and improve soil health.

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Heraud is the embodiment[br]of third-way thinking, right?

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Robots, he told me,

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don't have to remove us from nature,

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they can bring us closer to it,[br]they can restore it.

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Increasing crop diversity will be crucial

0:08:01.542,0:08:04.184
to building resilient food systems.

0:08:04.208,0:08:06.976
And so will decentralizing agriculture

0:08:07.000,0:08:09.393
so that when farmers[br]in one region are disrupted,

0:08:09.417,0:08:11.559
the others around, they can keep growing.

0:08:11.583,0:08:13.101
The rise of vertical farms,

0:08:13.125,0:08:19.018
like this farm, built inside[br]a former steel mill in Newark, New Jersey,

0:08:19.042,0:08:22.976
can play a key role[br]in decentralizing agriculture.

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Aeroponic farms use a tiny fraction

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of the water that is used[br]in in-ground farms.

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And they can grow food much faster,[br]about 40 percent faster.

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And when located in and near cities,

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where the food is consumed,

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they eliminate a huge amount[br]of trucking and food waste.

0:08:40.125,0:08:42.393
It struck me at first as creepy

0:08:42.417,0:08:44.059
in kind of a "Silent Running" way

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that we'd be growing[br]our future fruits and vegetables

0:08:47.542,0:08:51.184
inside, without soil or sun.

0:08:51.208,0:08:54.351
And after weeks of spending time[br]in these plant factories,

0:08:54.375,0:08:58.309
I began to see it as oddly,[br]almost perfectly natural

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to deliver the plants[br]only and exactly what they need,

0:09:01.667,0:09:04.518
with zero herbicides[br]and radical efficiency.

0:09:04.542,0:09:07.934
Here again, we see innovators[br]borrowing from,

0:09:07.958,0:09:12.434
and perhaps even elevating[br]the wisdom of natural ecosystems.

0:09:12.458,0:09:15.893
Developments in plant-based[br]and alternative meats

0:09:15.917,0:09:17.809
are also profoundly hopeful.

0:09:17.833,0:09:19.476
And they follow a similar trend

0:09:19.500,0:09:24.559
toward local, resilient,[br]low-carbon protein production.

0:09:24.583,0:09:26.184
Consumers are excited about this,

0:09:26.208,0:09:27.476
and during the pandemic,

0:09:27.500,0:09:29.518
we've seen a 250 percent increase

0:09:29.542,0:09:32.101
in demand for alternative meats.

0:09:32.125,0:09:34.934
A study by the Journal[br]of Clinical Nutrition

0:09:34.958,0:09:40.726
found that the participants[br]who were eating the plant-based proteins

0:09:40.750,0:09:43.518
saw a drop in their cholesterol levels,

0:09:43.542,0:09:44.809
in their weight

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and eventually, a drop[br]in their risk of heart disease.

0:09:48.375,0:09:52.434
The potential environmental benefits[br]of plant-based meats are astounding.

0:09:52.458,0:09:56.768
And there's even potential[br]in lab-grown or cell-based meats.

0:09:56.792,0:10:01.184
Uma Valeti fed me my first plate[br]of lab-grown duck breast,

0:10:01.208,0:10:04.268
harvested fresh from a bioreactor.

0:10:04.292,0:10:06.851
It had been grown[br]from a small sampling of cells

0:10:06.875,0:10:11.184
taken from muscle tissue and fat[br]and connective tissues,

0:10:11.208,0:10:13.976
which is exactly what we eat[br]when we eat meat.

0:10:14.000,0:10:16.768
This lab-grown or cell-based duck meat

0:10:16.792,0:10:19.893
has very little threat[br]of bacterial contamination,

0:10:19.917,0:10:23.684
it's about 85 percent lower CO2[br]emissions associated with it.

0:10:23.708,0:10:25.809
Eventually it can be grown

0:10:25.833,0:10:30.476
like those crops inside vertical farms[br]in decentralized facilities

0:10:30.500,0:10:33.684
that aren't vulnerable[br]to supply-chain disruptions.

0:10:33.708,0:10:35.726
Valeti started out as a cardiologist,

0:10:35.750,0:10:40.184
who understood that doctors[br]have been developing

0:10:40.208,0:10:43.934
human and animal tissues[br]in laboratories for decades.

0:10:43.958,0:10:46.268
He was inspired as much by that

0:10:46.292,0:10:50.851
as he was by a 1931 quote[br]from Winston Churchill that says,

0:10:50.875,0:10:53.768
"We shall escape the absurdity[br]of growing the whole chicken

0:10:53.792,0:10:56.018
in order to eat the breast or the wing,

0:10:56.042,0:11:00.393
by growing them separately[br]in suitable mediums."

0:11:00.417,0:11:04.351
Like Heraud, Valeti is[br]a quintessential third-way thinker.

0:11:04.375,0:11:08.143
He's reimagined an old idea[br]using new technology,

0:11:08.167,0:11:12.184
to usher in a solution[br]whose time has come.

0:11:12.208,0:11:17.226
I've met with dozens of farmers[br]and entrepreneurs and engineers

0:11:17.250,0:11:20.101
who emulate third-way thinking,[br]all over the world.

0:11:20.125,0:11:23.268
They're using modern[br]breeding tools like CRISPR

0:11:23.292,0:11:27.559
to develop nutritious heirloom crops[br]that can withstand drought and heat.

0:11:27.583,0:11:31.768
They're using AI to make[br]aquaculture sustainable.

0:11:31.792,0:11:34.476
They're finding ways[br]to eliminate food waste.

0:11:34.500,0:11:35.768
They are scaling up

0:11:35.792,0:11:38.434
conservation agriculture[br]and managed grazing.

0:11:38.458,0:11:40.226
And they're reviving ancient plants,

0:11:40.250,0:11:42.934
and they're recycling[br]sewage and gray water

0:11:42.958,0:11:45.625
to develop a drought-proof water supply.

0:11:46.625,0:11:48.351
The upshot is this:

0:11:48.375,0:11:53.434
Human innovation that marries[br]old and new approaches to food production

0:11:53.458,0:11:57.393
can, and I believe, will[br]usher in this third way

0:11:57.417,0:12:01.125
and redefine sustainable food[br]on a grand scale.