1
00:00:17,501 --> 00:00:21,589
Not so long ago, in December 2015,
I was invited to a party.

2
00:00:21,904 --> 00:00:24,575
A friend of mine was celebrating his PhD.

3
00:00:25,016 --> 00:00:26,197
It was a great evening.

4
00:00:26,197 --> 00:00:30,262
We had lots of fun, couple of beers, 
really good homemade food.

5
00:00:31,129 --> 00:00:34,027
And of course, as we were 
celebrating his academic success,

6
00:00:34,030 --> 00:00:36,280
after a while, he wanted to talk about it.

7
00:00:36,292 --> 00:00:40,980
And we the guests were interested
to learn more about his work.

8
00:00:41,516 --> 00:00:46,001
"Do you know that most of our food
is highly dependent on oil?"

9
00:00:46,837 --> 00:00:49,636
This was his question
to introduce his work.

10
00:00:50,185 --> 00:00:54,157
"And do you know we are running
out of soil to grow our food?"

11
00:00:54,487 --> 00:00:57,086
This was his second question.

12
00:00:57,375 --> 00:00:58,734
Do you know?

13
00:01:00,400 --> 00:01:04,202
I was stunned because I was 
absolutely not aware of that.

14
00:01:04,732 --> 00:01:09,248
I was immediately fascinated by those
unknown challenges of food production.

15
00:01:09,561 --> 00:01:14,751
And I was thrilled, as my friend claimed
to have a solution to those challenges:

16
00:01:15,715 --> 00:01:17,941
urban vertical farming.

17
00:01:18,521 --> 00:01:23,933
Vertical farming as a method
to save soil and energy,

18
00:01:24,022 --> 00:01:28,059
a solution to grow food
locally where we live,

19
00:01:28,059 --> 00:01:30,321
in the hearts of our cities,

20
00:01:30,321 --> 00:01:33,511
and save the scarce 
resources of our planet.

21
00:01:34,008 --> 00:01:37,720
I was so thrilled that I quit my job
and joined my friend

22
00:01:37,720 --> 00:01:40,124
to found the vertical farm institute.

23
00:01:40,980 --> 00:01:45,307
So this party, two years ago,
led my way to you

24
00:01:45,308 --> 00:01:48,767
because what I learn about food
production every day

25
00:01:48,768 --> 00:01:52,768
in my work of vertical farm institute 
is simply mind-blowing.

26
00:01:53,584 --> 00:01:57,288
And although actually being 
a rather quiet person,

27
00:01:57,515 --> 00:01:59,872
I have to be here and talk to you.

28
00:02:00,278 --> 00:02:06,329
Because I eat, because I love good food, 
and because I really love our planet.

29
00:02:06,989 --> 00:02:12,593
And we seriously endanger this planet 
because of the way we produce food today.

30
00:02:13,678 --> 00:02:17,920
I live in a perfect world.
Here, you see this pin? That's my house.

31
00:02:18,391 --> 00:02:19,669
Still an urban touch

32
00:02:19,675 --> 00:02:24,296
but right in the middle of fields, 
meadows, forests, some farms around.

33
00:02:25,136 --> 00:02:27,878
I buy locally grown organic food

34
00:02:28,093 --> 00:02:31,664
every Friday, at our market
in my hometown, Ottensheim.

35
00:02:32,382 --> 00:02:35,092
I know the chicken personally,
whose eggs I eat,

36
00:02:35,092 --> 00:02:36,539
and the farmer of course.

37
00:02:36,542 --> 00:02:38,139
That's my friend Michael.

38
00:02:38,837 --> 00:02:40,487
I have my own garden.

39
00:02:40,487 --> 00:02:41,917
I grow my own tomatoes,

40
00:02:41,920 --> 00:02:44,254
and I preserve my own vegetables.

41
00:02:45,420 --> 00:02:46,865
What about you?

42
00:02:47,562 --> 00:02:52,294
If you live in a similar surrounding,
you might live in the same world as me.

43
00:02:52,881 --> 00:02:55,698
But is this the world 
we all are living in?

44
00:02:56,415 --> 00:02:58,413
Let us change our perspective.

45
00:02:59,065 --> 00:03:03,796
This is how many people
live today, city of Beijing.

46
00:03:04,629 --> 00:03:09,594
This is where our food comes from, 
Mato Grosso in Brazil,

47
00:03:09,901 --> 00:03:14,755
once a rain forest, now devastated 
for the production of our soy beans.

48
00:03:15,274 --> 00:03:19,506
This is where tomatoes
come from - Almería in Spain.

49
00:03:20,446 --> 00:03:21,505
Actually not,

50
00:03:21,506 --> 00:03:23,943
this is what we see as tourists.

51
00:03:24,541 --> 00:03:27,108
This is where tomatoes really come from,

52
00:03:27,108 --> 00:03:30,698
and what you see here
are plastic greenhouses.

53
00:03:30,841 --> 00:03:36,663
Plastic covering an area bigger 
than Austria's capital, Vienna.

54
00:03:38,817 --> 00:03:44,828
So actually, this does not look
too good. It is really bad.

55
00:03:45,588 --> 00:03:50,847
This way of agriculture consumes
too much resources, soil and energy.

56
00:03:50,928 --> 00:03:53,448
It's absolutely not sustainable.

57
00:03:53,987 --> 00:03:57,080
I need to spell this out for you clearly,

58
00:03:57,082 --> 00:03:59,713
just as my friend did
at the party two years ago,

59
00:03:59,713 --> 00:04:02,941
to make you understand
why I could not let this go.

60
00:04:03,580 --> 00:04:05,969
It's all about oil.

61
00:04:06,890 --> 00:04:10,181
Fertilizers consist of fossil resources.

62
00:04:10,411 --> 00:04:15,940
Fossil resources are needed to transport
the tomatoes from Almería to your table.

63
00:04:16,852 --> 00:04:18,444
Fossil resources are needed

64
00:04:18,444 --> 00:04:23,081
to heat the glasshouses
where our domestic tomatoes grow.

65
00:04:23,342 --> 00:04:28,825
And fossil resources are needed to heat 
the stoves on which you cook your food.

66
00:04:30,104 --> 00:04:31,694
Fossil resources,

67
00:04:31,932 --> 00:04:34,834
this means with every bite you eat,

68
00:04:35,666 --> 00:04:37,846
you consume oil.

69
00:04:40,002 --> 00:04:45,633
Do we really want
to eat food fueled by fuel?

70
00:04:48,293 --> 00:04:55,503
One third of the world's total primary
energy is used for the food sector,

71
00:04:56,114 --> 00:04:59,377
fossil resources, hydrocarbon energy, oil.

72
00:04:59,486 --> 00:05:04,423
And this is what I mean
when I speak of energy related to food.

73
00:05:05,985 --> 00:05:09,767
So as I said, it doesn't really
look good; it's really bad.

74
00:05:09,768 --> 00:05:11,195
It's bad for our planet,

75
00:05:11,195 --> 00:05:14,582
and this is only
where we are right now, today.

76
00:05:14,582 --> 00:05:16,314
So let's have a look ahead.

77
00:05:17,034 --> 00:05:21,740
By 2050, we're expected to be
9 or even 10 billion people on Earth.

78
00:05:22,211 --> 00:05:25,200
Seventy percent of us 
will live in urban areas,

79
00:05:25,200 --> 00:05:29,970
and most of us will live
in one of 400 mega cities on Earth.

80
00:05:31,043 --> 00:05:33,604
How will we feed all those people?

81
00:05:34,634 --> 00:05:36,150
Already today,

82
00:05:36,697 --> 00:05:42,553
we use arable land as big as the whole
of South America to grow our grain

83
00:05:43,068 --> 00:05:45,889
and not to mention land used by animals.

84
00:05:45,925 --> 00:05:48,055
To feed us in 2050,

85
00:05:48,055 --> 00:05:53,640
we need additional arable land as big
as Australia; that's a whole continent.

86
00:05:56,838 --> 00:06:00,659
The good news: there is
still arable land available.

87
00:06:01,570 --> 00:06:05,157
The bad news: it's mostly 
covered in the rain forests.

88
00:06:05,162 --> 00:06:10,679
So the only way to access
new arable land is deforestation.

89
00:06:11,191 --> 00:06:13,544
We cut into our planet's green lung

90
00:06:13,866 --> 00:06:18,653
to grow more grain, to feed cows,
to have burgers to eat.

91
00:06:19,555 --> 00:06:20,932
Really?

92
00:06:22,696 --> 00:06:24,627
Do you know what this picture shows?

93
00:06:26,203 --> 00:06:31,272
Each and every of those spots here, 
hundreds, perhaps thousands, is a fire.

94
00:06:31,536 --> 00:06:37,367
It's man-made fires and flamed
to burn down our rain forests.

95
00:06:41,360 --> 00:06:47,382
Cultivate new land - cultivation 
means destruction in this case.

96
00:06:47,424 --> 00:06:52,136
Destruction of living environment
for animals, insects, us people of course,

97
00:06:52,139 --> 00:06:56,009
and not even to mention the damage 
done to oxygen production.

98
00:06:56,417 --> 00:07:00,780
This picture was taken
by NASA in spring of 2017.

99
00:07:01,410 --> 00:07:03,960
It shows the Congo Delta in Africa.

100
00:07:04,089 --> 00:07:07,479
It's still a bit abstract,
so let me give you the idea of the scale.

101
00:07:07,851 --> 00:07:09,940
The fires burning here

102
00:07:11,398 --> 00:07:13,804
have a size bigger than Italy,

103
00:07:13,927 --> 00:07:16,947
and they might still
be burning, just right now.

104
00:07:18,914 --> 00:07:22,075
You think that maybe 
I'm being overly dramatic.

105
00:07:22,489 --> 00:07:23,844
In our supermarkets,

106
00:07:23,850 --> 00:07:28,404
there're so many products labeled
as domestic Austrian products,

107
00:07:28,549 --> 00:07:31,508
so the situation cannot be so bad at all.

108
00:07:31,925 --> 00:07:37,407
Do we really need to be bothered about 
what's going on in Brazil or in Africa?

109
00:07:38,090 --> 00:07:40,483
I say: yes, we should be.

110
00:07:40,869 --> 00:07:42,703
Let me give you two figures.

111
00:07:43,335 --> 00:07:49,175
About 80% of all the tomatoes
we consume here in Austria are imported,

112
00:07:49,827 --> 00:07:55,336
and almost 50% of all our
livestock products are imported as well.

113
00:07:58,286 --> 00:08:01,913
This way of producing food
is not sustainable.

114
00:08:01,913 --> 00:08:07,701
Our current mass food production
is slowly killing the planet.

115
00:08:08,703 --> 00:08:10,587
So what can we do?

116
00:08:10,587 --> 00:08:13,477
Every single one of us here in this room?

117
00:08:13,969 --> 00:08:16,945
Buy organic, locally grown products.

118
00:08:17,352 --> 00:08:21,408
Eat, preferably, only seasonal
fruits and vegetables.

119
00:08:21,808 --> 00:08:23,405
Eat less meat.

120
00:08:25,160 --> 00:08:29,266
Generally, be a little bit more humble,

121
00:08:29,479 --> 00:08:33,643
and try to live by what 
nature provides, if possible.

122
00:08:34,184 --> 00:08:38,083
We all here, we can change the world,
and we will change the world.

123
00:08:38,083 --> 00:08:40,304
That's why we are here today.

124
00:08:40,304 --> 00:08:43,868
We are not just the bystanders
of history, we make history.

125
00:08:44,645 --> 00:08:48,660
Well, at least that is
what we like to think.

126
00:08:51,460 --> 00:08:54,333
To reach big goals,
we have to think really big,

127
00:08:54,333 --> 00:08:56,520
we have to think outside the box,

128
00:08:56,746 --> 00:08:59,815
and we have to bring
food production to where we live.

129
00:09:00,632 --> 00:09:03,023
Wait a minute. Outside the box?

130
00:09:03,571 --> 00:09:07,089
Food has always been grown
just where people lived

131
00:09:07,089 --> 00:09:08,707
for eleven thousand years.

132
00:09:09,042 --> 00:09:11,206
Only until 100 years ago,

133
00:09:11,206 --> 00:09:14,656
when alongside the rise
of trains and transportation,

134
00:09:14,656 --> 00:09:17,958
food was grown elsewhere
and brought to our cities.

135
00:09:18,351 --> 00:09:20,956
Not sold at markets anymore,

136
00:09:20,956 --> 00:09:25,508
but in stores and supermarkets
spread all over the cities.

137
00:09:26,076 --> 00:09:31,008
And this complete decentralization
of food production and distribution

138
00:09:31,282 --> 00:09:36,462
is only possible because a massive 
amount of resources is put in:

139
00:09:36,882 --> 00:09:39,407
soil and energy.

140
00:09:40,717 --> 00:09:45,515
So to solve this problem,
we'll just do what always has been done.

141
00:09:45,855 --> 00:09:48,183
But using today's technology,

142
00:09:48,863 --> 00:09:52,012
by growing locally,
we cut out transportation.

143
00:09:52,209 --> 00:09:56,884
By growing vertically,
we massively reduce the soil needed

144
00:09:56,896 --> 00:09:59,494
by a factor 50 or even more.

145
00:09:59,587 --> 00:10:04,032
And by growing in intelligently designed,
multi-functional buildings,

146
00:10:04,036 --> 00:10:07,013
we massively reduce the energy needed.

147
00:10:07,336 --> 00:10:12,224
We can grow food without
or almost without fossil resources.

148
00:10:13,157 --> 00:10:17,249
Our solution, today's solution
of vertical farms.

149
00:10:19,121 --> 00:10:22,025
Remember the party
I told you about, two years ago?

150
00:10:22,625 --> 00:10:25,254
My friend celebrating 
was Daniel Podmirseg.

151
00:10:26,123 --> 00:10:30,571
His work is dedicated to vertical farming,
and it's groundbreaking.

152
00:10:31,263 --> 00:10:34,667
Daniel is the head of research
at the vertical farm institute.

153
00:10:34,794 --> 00:10:37,113
And he has one very strong vision,

154
00:10:37,675 --> 00:10:41,413
urban vertical farming
in multi-functional buildings,

155
00:10:42,013 --> 00:10:47,491
integrating urban functions,
such as markets, restaurants, offices,

156
00:10:47,491 --> 00:10:51,908
and using sunlight
as efficiently as possible.

157
00:10:55,936 --> 00:10:57,843
Call it hybrid system,

158
00:10:57,848 --> 00:11:02,635
stacked greenhouse, hyper building,
or simply vertical farm.

159
00:11:02,837 --> 00:11:07,108
What you see here is the blue print
of the future of food.

160
00:11:07,118 --> 00:11:08,890
That's not my words,

161
00:11:08,890 --> 00:11:13,082
according to Dickson Despommier,
the godfather of vertical farming.

162
00:11:14,554 --> 00:11:19,546
The currently dominant design 
in indoor farming is a closed system,

163
00:11:19,546 --> 00:11:22,814
controlled environments, 100% LED light,

164
00:11:24,029 --> 00:11:26,562
an environment rather easy to control

165
00:11:26,562 --> 00:11:31,137
because all the disturbing 
external influences are cut out.

166
00:11:32,075 --> 00:11:36,865
But if we consider not only soil,
but also energy, a really scarce resource,

167
00:11:37,567 --> 00:11:42,165
why do we cut out the most 
precious resource we have, sunlight?

168
00:11:42,673 --> 00:11:47,077
Sunlight, it's a matter
of overall energy efficiency,

169
00:11:47,348 --> 00:11:49,478
but it's also a matter of taste.

170
00:11:50,430 --> 00:11:52,946
The deeper we get into plant physiology,

171
00:11:53,353 --> 00:11:57,214
the more we learn about so called
secondary metabolites.

172
00:11:57,658 --> 00:12:00,651
Secondary metabolites 
are organic compounds

173
00:12:00,830 --> 00:12:05,241
not directly involved in the normal
growth and development of plants.

174
00:12:05,664 --> 00:12:10,991
Chemical structures adding surplus
to the plants, taste among others.

175
00:12:11,366 --> 00:12:15,377
Researchers, by the way, also believe
that they are beneficial for human health.

176
00:12:16,367 --> 00:12:20,467
I think you all have eaten
a tomato grown in a greenhouse

177
00:12:20,467 --> 00:12:23,307
and tasting of absolutely nothing.

178
00:12:25,336 --> 00:12:28,478
It's those secondary 
metabolites that add taste,

179
00:12:28,485 --> 00:12:31,347
make our food really good 
and really healthy.

180
00:12:31,891 --> 00:12:33,384
And as far as we know today,

181
00:12:33,902 --> 00:12:38,114
they need the full range
of sunlight in order to develop,

182
00:12:38,117 --> 00:12:43,058
not only ultra violet
and red light as provided by LEDs.

183
00:12:43,580 --> 00:12:46,526
So indoor farming as we know it today

184
00:12:46,526 --> 00:12:50,527
is not really a solution, 
but vertical farming is.

185
00:12:50,527 --> 00:12:52,307
Let me explain to you why,

186
00:12:52,307 --> 00:12:56,188
and let me explain to you 
why our proposal is so special.

187
00:12:58,597 --> 00:13:03,461
We want to design multi-functional 
buildings for food production,

188
00:13:03,875 --> 00:13:08,479
buildings that also provide other
important functions for and to a city.

189
00:13:08,973 --> 00:13:12,419
And we want to produce
as sustainably as possible

190
00:13:12,758 --> 00:13:15,426
by minimizing resource input.

191
00:13:16,896 --> 00:13:19,256
Food production in the heart of the city

192
00:13:19,256 --> 00:13:24,212
opens opportunities for local economy,
social life, public life.

193
00:13:24,479 --> 00:13:30,174
We need new market areas,
new public spaces to buy the food.

194
00:13:31,265 --> 00:13:34,368
Perhaps, we even watched
how the food grew.

195
00:13:34,372 --> 00:13:36,996
Over the last months, weeks, days,

196
00:13:36,996 --> 00:13:39,827
we were looking forward
to finally tasting it.

197
00:13:41,459 --> 00:13:45,097
We form a new relationship
with what we eat

198
00:13:45,099 --> 00:13:48,952
as we see where and how it was grown.

199
00:13:51,743 --> 00:13:55,639
The black box, as we've seen it. 
You remember the closed system?

200
00:13:55,639 --> 00:13:57,750
It's easy to control.

201
00:13:57,750 --> 00:13:59,861
It provides very stable conditions

202
00:14:00,259 --> 00:14:03,609
and therefore high 
predictability of the outcomes.

203
00:14:04,010 --> 00:14:07,244
Economically seen, that might make sense.

204
00:14:07,740 --> 00:14:12,192
But why should we bring 
the light to the plants

205
00:14:12,726 --> 00:14:16,221
if we could also bring 
the plants to the light.

206
00:14:17,768 --> 00:14:20,037
This question might seem weird.

207
00:14:20,252 --> 00:14:25,019
But letting in sunlight might be
the real game changer in urban farming,

208
00:14:25,338 --> 00:14:28,140
as it leads to more energy
efficient production

209
00:14:28,145 --> 00:14:31,159
and better and healthier products.

210
00:14:31,470 --> 00:14:35,948
So in our farms we use sunlight
to grow the food.

211
00:14:36,368 --> 00:14:38,342
Wow, what an invention.

212
00:14:41,307 --> 00:14:47,290
Instead of putting lots LED in the farm
and turning them on for 16 hours a day,

213
00:14:47,778 --> 00:14:51,420
we grow behind transparent facades,

214
00:14:52,507 --> 00:14:55,063
just as in a greenhouse, simply.

215
00:14:55,525 --> 00:14:58,242
But still, there is one challenge left.

216
00:14:58,242 --> 00:15:01,432
In buildings as huge as ours,

217
00:15:01,432 --> 00:15:04,155
the sunlight does not penetrate
the building completely.

218
00:15:04,155 --> 00:15:08,724
So the further away from the facade,
the darker it gets inside.

219
00:15:08,724 --> 00:15:10,034
But we have to make sure

220
00:15:10,034 --> 00:15:13,830
that each and every plant receives 
the same amount of daylight.

221
00:15:14,890 --> 00:15:20,114
And to insure this, we transport 
the plants through the building,

222
00:15:20,114 --> 00:15:23,557
we deliver the plants to the 
facade and to the sunlight.

223
00:15:23,557 --> 00:15:27,483
And for this transportation, 
we use conveyor belts.

224
00:15:28,123 --> 00:15:32,501
Depending on design of the building 
and a lot of other parameters,

225
00:15:32,501 --> 00:15:35,053
such as geography, surroundings,

226
00:15:35,053 --> 00:15:37,989
those belts might be 
rotating horizontally,

227
00:15:37,989 --> 00:15:40,656
vertically, or in three dimensions.

228
00:15:41,242 --> 00:15:47,303
In any case, they move really slowly,
and they consume very little energy.

229
00:15:48,703 --> 00:15:55,080
Yes, we also do have LEDs in our farm,
but they only go on when and where needed,

230
00:15:55,700 --> 00:15:57,767
triggered by photo sensors.

231
00:15:58,164 --> 00:16:01,165
So the overall energy
consumption in our farm

232
00:16:01,683 --> 00:16:04,888
is way less than in the black box.

233
00:16:05,985 --> 00:16:08,287
And of course, by letting in sunlight,

234
00:16:08,287 --> 00:16:11,389
we promote the creation
of secondary metabolites,

235
00:16:11,389 --> 00:16:15,012
and therefore we produce 
better and healthier food.

236
00:16:15,646 --> 00:16:20,289
Together with the institute
of building and technology at Graz -

237
00:16:20,844 --> 00:16:25,737
of building and energy - sorry -
at Graz University of Technology,

238
00:16:25,890 --> 00:16:28,780
we develop what is the future of food,

239
00:16:29,148 --> 00:16:33,636
multi-functional vertical farms
in the hearts of our cities.

240
00:16:35,373 --> 00:16:38,826
What we propose here 
will be the new normal.

241
00:16:38,832 --> 00:16:41,853
It's not today, at least not in Europe.

242
00:16:42,448 --> 00:16:45,148
Japan or China are way ahead of us.

243
00:16:46,288 --> 00:16:48,940
A lot of struggling 
still lies ahead of us.

244
00:16:48,940 --> 00:16:52,366
Research has to be done
and technology has to improve.

245
00:16:52,366 --> 00:16:54,081
We have to create acceptance

246
00:16:54,081 --> 00:16:58,223
for products grown indoor 
in the hearts of our cities,

247
00:16:58,766 --> 00:17:01,372
and we want to help to raise awareness

248
00:17:01,372 --> 00:17:05,156
in how food and energy
depend on each other.

249
00:17:05,897 --> 00:17:09,408
But I am sure vertical farming

250
00:17:09,948 --> 00:17:13,607
plays a crucial part
in securing the future of food

251
00:17:13,946 --> 00:17:16,826
and in securing the future of our planet.

252
00:17:17,563 --> 00:17:22,896
And I hope very much that I was able today
to plant the seed in your head.

253
00:17:23,453 --> 00:17:26,435
(Applause)