WEBVTT

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Not so long ago, in December 2015,
I was invited to a party.

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A friend of mine was celebrating his PhD.

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It was a great evening.

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We had lots of fun, couple of beers, 
really good homemade food.

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And of course, as we were 
celebrating his academic success,

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after a while, he wanted to talk about it.

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And we the guests were interested
to learn more about his work.

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"Do you know that most of our food
is highly dependent on oil?"

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This was his question
to introduce his work.

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"And do you know we are running
out of soil to grow our food?"

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This was his second question.

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Do you know?

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I was stunned because I was 
absolutely not aware of that.

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I was immediately fascinated by those
unknown challenges of food production.

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And I was thrilled, as my friend claimed
to have a solution to those challenges:

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urban vertical farming.

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Vertical farming as a method
to save soil and energy,

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a solution to grow food
locally where we live,

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in the hearts of our cities,

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and save the scarce 
resources of our planet.

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I was so thrilled that I quit my job
and joined my friend

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to found the vertical farm institute.

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So this party, two years ago,
led my way to you

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because what I learn about food
production every day

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in my work of vertical farm institute 
is simply mind-blowing.

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And although actually being 
a rather quiet person,

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I have to be here and talk to you.

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Because I eat, because I love good food, 
and because I really love our planet.

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And we seriously endanger this planet 
because of the way we produce food today.

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I live in a perfect world.
Here, you see this pin? That's my house.

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Still an urban touch

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but right in the middle of fields, 
meadows, forests, some farms around.

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I buy locally grown organic food

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every Friday, at our market
in my hometown, Ottensheim.

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I know the chicken personally,
whose eggs I eat,

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and the farmer of course.

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That's my friend Michael.

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I have my own garden.

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I grow my own tomatoes,

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and I preserve my own vegetables.

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What about you?

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If you live in a similar surrounding,
you might live in the same world as me.

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But is this the world 
we all are living in?

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Let us change our perspective.

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This is how many people
live today, city of Beijing.

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This is where our food comes from, 
Mato Grosso in Brazil,

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once a rain forest, now devastated 
for the production of our soy beans.

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This is where tomatoes
come from - Almería in Spain.

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Actually not,

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this is what we see as tourists.

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This is where tomatoes really come from,

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and what you see here
are plastic greenhouses.

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Plastic covering an area bigger 
than Austria's capital, Vienna.

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So actually, this does not look
too good. It is really bad.

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This way of agriculture consumes
too much resources, soil and energy.

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It's absolutely not sustainable.

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I need to spell this out for you clearly,

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just as my friend did
at the party two years ago,

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to make you understand
why I could not let this go.

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It's all about oil.

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Fertilizers consist of fossil resources.

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Fossil resources are needed to transport
the tomatoes from Almería to your table.

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Fossil resources are needed

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to heat the glasshouses
where our domestic tomatoes grow.

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And fossil resources are needed to heat 
the stoves on which you cook your food.

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Fossil resources,

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this means with every bite you eat,

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you consume oil.

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Do we really want
to eat food fueled by fuel?

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One third of the world's total primary
energy is used for the food sector,

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fossil resources, hydrocarbon energy, oil.

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And this is what I mean
when I speak of energy related to food.

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So as I said, it doesn't really
look good; it's really bad.

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It's bad for our planet,

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and this is only
where we are right now, today.

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So let's have a look ahead.

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By 2050, we're expected to be
9 or even 10 billion people on Earth.

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Seventy percent of us 
will live in urban areas,

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and most of us will live
in one of 400 mega cities on Earth.

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How will we feed all those people?

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Already today,

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we use arable land as big as the whole
of South America to grow our grain

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and not to mention land used by animals.

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To feed us in 2050,

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we need additional arable land as big
as Australia; that's a whole continent.

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The good news: there is
still arable land available.

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The bad news: it's mostly 
covered in the rain forests.

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So the only way to access
new arable land is deforestation.

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We cut into our planet's green lung

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to grow more grain, to feed cows,
to have burgers to eat.

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Really?

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Do you know what this picture shows?

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Each and every of those spots here, 
hundreds, perhaps thousands, is a fire.

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It's man-made fires and flamed
to burn down our rain forests.

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Cultivate new land - cultivation 
means destruction in this case.

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Destruction of living environment
for animals, insects, us people of course,

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and not even to mention the damage 
done to oxygen production.

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This picture was taken
by NASA in spring of 2017.

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It shows the Congo Delta in Africa.

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It's still a bit abstract,
so let me give you the idea of the scale.

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The fires burning here

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have a size bigger than Italy,

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and they might still
be burning, just right now.

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You think that maybe 
I'm being overly dramatic.

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In our supermarkets,

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there're so many products labeled
as domestic Austrian products,

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so the situation cannot be so bad at all.

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Do we really need to be bothered about 
what's going on in Brazil or in Africa?

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I say: yes, we should be.

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Let me give you two figures.

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About 80% of all the tomatoes
we consume here in Austria are imported,

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and almost 50% of all our
livestock products are imported as well.

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This way of producing food
is not sustainable.

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Our current mass food production
is slowly killing the planet.

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So what can we do?

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Every single one of us here in this room?

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Buy organic, locally grown products.

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Eat, preferably, only seasonal
fruits and vegetables.

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Eat less meat.

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Generally, be a little bit more humble,

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and try to live by what 
nature provides, if possible.

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We all here, we can change the world,
and we will change the world.

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That's why we are here today.

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We are not just the bystanders
of history, we make history.

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Well, at least that is
what we like to think.

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To reach big goals,
we have to think really big,

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we have to think outside the box,

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and we have to bring
food production to where we live.

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Wait a minute. Outside the box?

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Food has always been grown
just where people lived

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for eleven thousand years.

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Only until 100 years ago,

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when alongside the rise
of trains and transportation,

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food was grown elsewhere
and brought to our cities.

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Not sold at markets anymore,

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but in stores and supermarkets
spread all over the cities.

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And this complete decentralization
of food production and distribution

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is only possible because a massive 
amount of resources is put in:

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soil and energy.

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So to solve this problem,
we'll just do what always has been done.

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But using today's technology,

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by growing locally,
we cut out transportation.

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By growing vertically,
we massively reduce the soil needed

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by a factor 50 or even more.

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And by growing in intelligently designed,
multi-functional buildings,

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we massively reduce the energy needed.

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We can grow food without
or almost without fossil resources.

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Our solution, today's solution
of vertical farms.

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Remember the party
I told you about, two years ago?

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My friend celebrating 
was Daniel Podmirseg.

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His work is dedicated to vertical farming,
and it's groundbreaking.

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Daniel is the head of research
at the vertical farm institute.

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And he has one very strong vision,

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urban vertical farming
in multi-functional buildings,

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integrating urban functions,
such as markets, restaurants, offices,

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and using sunlight
as efficiently as possible.

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Call it hybrid system,

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stacked greenhouse, hyper building,
or simply vertical farm.

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What you see here is the blue print
of the future of food.

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That's not my words,

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according to Dickson Despommier,
the godfather of vertical farming.

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The currently dominant design 
in indoor farming is a closed system,

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controlled environments, 100% LED light,

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an environment rather easy to control

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because all the disturbing 
external influences are cut out.

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But if we consider not only soil,
but also energy, a really scarce resource,

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why do we cut out the most 
precious resource we have, sunlight?

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Sunlight, it's a matter
of overall energy efficiency,

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but it's also a matter of taste.

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The deeper we get into plant physiology,

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the more we learn about so called
secondary metabolites.

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Secondary metabolites 
are organic compounds

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not directly involved in the normal
growth and development of plants.

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Chemical structures adding surplus
to the plants, taste among others.

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Researchers, by the way, also believe
that they are beneficial for human health.

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I think you all have eaten
a tomato grown in a greenhouse

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and tasting of absolutely nothing.

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It's those secondary 
metabolites that add taste,

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make our food really good 
and really healthy.

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And as far as we know today,

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they need the full range
of sunlight in order to develop,

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not only ultra violet
and red light as provided by LEDs.

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So indoor farming as we know it today

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is not really a solution, 
but vertical farming is.

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Let me explain to you why,

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and let me explain to you 
why our proposal is so special.

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We want to design multi-functional 
buildings for food production,

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buildings that also provide other
important functions for and to a city.

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And we want to produce
as sustainably as possible

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by minimizing resource input.

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Food production in the heart of the city

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opens opportunities for local economy,
social life, public life.

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We need new market areas,
new public spaces to buy the food.

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Perhaps, we even watched
how the food grew.

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Over the last months, weeks, days,

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we were looking forward
to finally tasting it.

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We form a new relationship
with what we eat

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as we see where and how it was grown.

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The black box, as we've seen it. 
You remember the closed system?

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It's easy to control.

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It provides very stable conditions

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and therefore high 
predictability of the outcomes.

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Economically seen, that might make sense.

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But why should we bring 
the light to the plants

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if we could also bring 
the plants to the light.

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This question might seem weird.

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But letting in sunlight might be
the real game changer in urban farming,

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as it leads to more energy
efficient production

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and better and healthier products.

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So in our farms we use sunlight
to grow the food.

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Wow, what an invention.

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Instead of putting lots LED in the farm
and turning them on for 16 hours a day,

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we grow behind transparent facades,

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just as in a greenhouse, simply.

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But still, there is one challenge left.

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In buildings as huge as ours,

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the sunlight does not penetrate
the building completely.

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So the further away from the facade,
the darker it gets inside.

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But we have to make sure

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that each and every plant receives 
the same amount of daylight.

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And to insure this, we transport 
the plants through the building,

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we deliver the plants to the 
facade and to the sunlight.

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And for this transportation, 
we use conveyor belts.

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Depending on design of the building 
and a lot of other parameters,

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such as geography, surroundings,

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those belts might be 
rotating horizontally,

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vertically, or in three dimensions.

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In any case, they move really slowly,
and they consume very little energy.

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Yes, we also do have LEDs in our farm,
but they only go on when and where needed,

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triggered by photo sensors.

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So the overall energy
consumption in our farm

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is way less than in the black box.

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And of course, by letting in sunlight,

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we promote the creation
of secondary metabolites,

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and therefore we produce 
better and healthier food.

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Together with the institute
of building and technology at Graz -

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of building and energy - sorry -
at Graz University of Technology,

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we develop what is the future of food,

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multi-functional vertical farms
in the hearts of our cities.

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What we propose here 
will be the new normal.

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It's not today, at least not in Europe.

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Japan or China are way ahead of us.

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A lot of struggling 
still lies ahead of us.

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Research has to be done
and technology has to improve.

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We have to create acceptance

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for products grown indoor 
in the hearts of our cities,

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and we want to help to raise awareness

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in how food and energy
depend on each other.

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But I am sure vertical farming

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plays a crucial part
in securing the future of food

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and in securing the future of our planet.

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And I hope very much that I was able today
to plant the seed in your head.

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(Applause)