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In the early months of the pandemic,

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chef José Andrés circulated two photos

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that have come to symbolize
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
in a field in Idaho.

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The restaurants and cafeterias
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
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
supply to go around.

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

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in the most prosperous

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and technologically advanced
moment in our history," tweeted Andrés.

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In the months after
the photos were published,

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the crisis got worse.

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Billions of pounds of potatoes
and other fresh produce

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were chucked by American farmers.

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At the same time,

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food banks all over the country
were reporting demand increases

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and 40 percent were facing
critical shortfalls.

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Outside the US,

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especially in the Middle East
and throughout Southeastern Africa,

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

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Oxfam has predicted
that by the end of 2020

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

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That's more than the highest
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
concerning to all of us

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is that COVID is just one
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
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
have seen this on your farms.

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You've seen withering heat
and drought and fires

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disrupt avocado and almond
and citrus and strawberry farms.

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This summer, we saw
the devastating impacts of storms

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on corn and soy farms.

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I've seen the various
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
something we can taste.

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This is a kitchen-table issue
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
of global warming

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beyond which current
agricultural practices

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can no longer support
large human civilizations.

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

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the single biggest threat
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
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
or preempt them.

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Addressing this challenge
as much as any other

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is going to define our progress
in the coming century.

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But there's good news.

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And the good news is that farmers
and entrepreneurs and academics

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are radically rethinking
national and global food systems.

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They are marrying principles
of old-world agroecology

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and state-of-the-art technologies

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to create what I call
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
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
for my book "The Fate of Food:

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

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I traveled for five years
into the lands and the minds

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and the machines that are shaping
the future of food.

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My travels took me
through 15 countries and 18 states,

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from apple orchards in Wisconsin
to tiny cornfields in Kenya,

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to massive Norwegian fish farms

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and computerized foodscapes in Shanghai.

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I investigated new ideas,

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like robotics and CRISPR
and vertical farms.

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And old ideas, like edible insects
and permaculture and ancient plants.

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

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A synthesis of the traditional
and the radically new.

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There's a growing controversy

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about the best path
to future food security in the US.

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Food is ripe for reinvention,
Bill Gates has proclaimed.

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Huge flows of investment

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

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But many sustainable food advocates
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,

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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
farming methods

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could produce better food,

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

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The rift between the reinvention camp
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
from the outside,

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

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

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Our challenge is to borrow
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
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
and a lapsed vegetarian,

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and a terrible backyard farmer.

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If I'm honest,

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I will keep trying at this,
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.

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Plenty of solutions are merging

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that can help build sustainable,
resilient food systems.

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Even if we can't rely on a critical mass

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of backyard-farming vegetarians
to do this on their own,

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from the ground up.

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Let's start with artificial
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
a robotic weeder named See and Spray,

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

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

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to march into the fields
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
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
to see the ground beneath

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and to distinguish between
the plants and the weeds.

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And to deploy with sniper-like precision

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these tiny jets
of concentrated fertilizer,

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or herbicide,

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that incinerate the baby weeds.

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I learned how robotics
can end the practice

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of broadcast spraying chemicals
across millions of acres of land

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and how we can reduce
the use of herbicides

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by up to 90 percent.

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But the bigger picture
is even more exciting.

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Intelligent machines
can treat plants individually,

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applying not just herbicides

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but fungicides and insecticides

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and fertilizers on a plant-by-plant,
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
and intercropping on fields.

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And big farms can begin
to mimic natural systems

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and improve soil health.

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Heraud is the embodiment
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,
they can restore it.

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Increasing crop diversity will be crucial

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to building resilient food systems.

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And so will decentralizing agriculture

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so that when farmers
in one region are disrupted,

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the others around, they can keep growing.

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The rise of vertical farms,

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like this farm, built inside
a former steel mill in Newark, New Jersey,

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can play a key role
in decentralizing agriculture.

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Aeroponic farms use a tiny fraction

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of the water that is used
in in-ground farms.

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And they can grow food much faster,
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
of trucking and food waste.

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It struck me at first as creepy

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in kind of a "Silent Running" way

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that we'd be growing
our future fruits and vegetables

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inside, without soil or sun.

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And after weeks of spending time
in these plant factories,

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I began to see it as oddly,
almost perfectly natural

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to deliver the plants
only and exactly what they need,

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with zero herbicides
and radical efficiency.

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Here again, we see innovators
borrowing from,

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and perhaps even elevating
the wisdom of natural ecosystems.

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Developments in plant-based
and alternative meats

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are also profoundly hopeful.

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And they follow a similar trend

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toward local, resilient,
low-carbon protein production.

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Consumers are excited about this,

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and during the pandemic,

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we've seen a 250 percent increase

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in demand for alternative meats.

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A study by the Journal
of Clinical Nutrition

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found that the participants
who were eating the plant-based proteins

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saw a drop in their cholesterol levels,

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in their weight

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

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The potential environmental benefits
of plant-based meats are astounding.

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And there's even potential
in lab-grown or cell-based meats.

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Uma Valeti fed me my first plate
of lab-grown duck breast,

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harvested fresh from a bioreactor.

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It had been grown
from a small sampling of cells

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taken from muscle tissue and fat
and connective tissues,

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which is exactly what we eat
when we eat meat.

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This lab-grown or cell-based duck meat

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has very little threat
of bacterial contamination,

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it's about 85 percent lower CO2
emissions associated with it.

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Eventually it can be grown

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like those crops inside vertical farms
in decentralized facilities

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that aren't vulnerable
to supply-chain disruptions.

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Valeti started out as a cardiologist,

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who understood that doctors
have been developing

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human and animal tissues
in laboratories for decades.

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He was inspired as much by that

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as he was by a 1931 quote
from Winston Churchill that says,

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"We shall escape the absurdity
of growing the whole chicken

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in order to eat the breast or the wing,

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by growing them separately
in suitable mediums."

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Like Heraud, Valeti is
a quintessential third-way thinker.

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He's reimagined an old idea
using new technology,

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to usher in a solution
whose time has come.

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I've met with dozens of farmers
and entrepreneurs and engineers

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who emulate third-way thinking,
all over the world.

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They're using modern
breeding tools like CRISPR

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to develop nutritious heirloom crops
that can withstand drought and heat.

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They're using AI to make
aquaculture sustainable.

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They're finding ways
to eliminate food waste.

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They are scaling up

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conservation agriculture
and managed grazing.

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And they're reviving ancient plants,

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and they're recycling
sewage and gray water

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to develop a drought-proof water supply.

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The upshot is this:

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Human innovation that marries
old and new approaches to food production

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can, and I believe, will
usher in this third way

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and redefine sustainable food
on a grand scale.