Vertical farming - food production in urban environment | Stefan Parnreiter-Mathys | TEDxLinz

Food used to be grown in the immediate vicinity of our homes for most of human history; something that is new in a world after exponential population growth, urbanisation and industrialisation. People are so accustomed to the easiness of supermarkets, it is easy to lose sight of where the food actually comes from. Every person on Earth needs approximately 2300 square meters of land to eat for a year. As the world population reaches closer to 9 billion in the next few decades, the amount of land needed for food production alone is immense. Vertical farming and developing of “Hyperbuildings” can bring food production back to where people live, and in a much more sustainable and effective way. What if we had strawberry fields on the 27th floor of a skyscraper? Stefan Parnreiter-Mathys is best known in the Austrian music and event industry. Stefan was the catalysator for various Austrian bands, such as Soap&Skin, and alternative music institutions, such as Waves Vienna Festival, Electric Spring Festival and the nightclub Fluc and many more. More recently, Stefan has founded the management consultancy dieTREIBER and co-founded the independent research institute Vertical Farm Institute and is all about finding the best way to provide local freshly produced food in metropolitan areas.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

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

A friend of mine was celebrating his PhD.

It was a great evening.

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

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

after a while, he wanted to talk about it.

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

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

This was his question
to introduce his work.

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

This was his second question.

Do you know?

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

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

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

urban vertical farming.

Vertical farming as a method
to save soil and energy,

a solution to grow food
locally where we live,

in the hearts of our cities,

and save the scarce
resources of our planet.

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

to found the vertical farm institute.

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

because what I learn about food
production every day

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

And although actually being
a rather quiet person,

I have to be here and talk to you.

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

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

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

Still an urban touch

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

I buy locally grown organic food

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

I know the chicken personally,
whose eggs I eat,

and the farmer of course.

That's my friend Michael.

I have my own garden.

I grow my own tomatoes,

and I preserve my own vegetables.

What about you?

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

But is this the world
we all are living in?

Let us change our perspective.

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

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

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

This is where tomatoes
come from - Almería in Spain.

Actually not,

this is what we see as tourists.

This is where tomatoes really come from,

and what you see here
are plastic greenhouses.

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

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

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

It's absolutely not sustainable.

I need to spell this out for you clearly,

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

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

It's all about oil.

Fertilizers consist of fossil resources.

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

Fossil resources are needed

to heat the glasshouses
where our domestic tomatoes grow.

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

Fossil resources,

this means with every bite you eat,

you consume oil.

Do we really want
to eat food fueled by fuel?

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

fossil resources, hydrocarbon energy, oil.

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

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

It's bad for our planet,

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

So let's have a look ahead.

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

Seventy percent of us
will live in urban areas,

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

How will we feed all those people?

Already today,

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

and not to mention land used by animals.

To feed us in 2050,

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

The good news: there is
still arable land available.

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

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

We cut into our planet's green lung

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

Really?

Do you know what this picture shows?

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

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

Cultivate new land - cultivation
means destruction in this case.

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

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

This picture was taken
by NASA in spring of 2017.

It shows the Congo Delta in Africa.

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

The fires burning here

have a size bigger than Italy,

and they might still
be burning, just right now.

You think that maybe
I'm being overly dramatic.

In our supermarkets,

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

so the situation cannot be so bad at all.

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

I say: yes, we should be.

Let me give you two figures.

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

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

This way of producing food
is not sustainable.

Our current mass food production
is slowly killing the planet.

So what can we do?

Every single one of us here in this room?

Buy organic, locally grown products.

Eat, preferably, only seasonal
fruits and vegetables.

Eat less meat.

Generally, be a little bit more humble,

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

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

That's why we are here today.

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

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

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

we have to think outside the box,

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

Wait a minute. Outside the box?

Food has always been grown
just where people lived

for eleven thousand years.

Only until 100 years ago,

when alongside the rise
of trains and transportation,

food was grown elsewhere
and brought to our cities.

Not sold at markets anymore,

but in stores and supermarkets
spread all over the cities.

And this complete decentralization
of food production and distribution

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

soil and energy.

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

But using today's technology,

by growing locally,
we cut out transportation.

By growing vertically,
we massively reduce the soil needed

by a factor 50 or even more.

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

we massively reduce the energy needed.

We can grow food without
or almost without fossil resources.

Our solution, today's solution
of vertical farms.

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

My friend celebrating
was Daniel Podmirseg.

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

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

And he has one very strong vision,

urban vertical farming
in multi-functional buildings,

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

and using sunlight
as efficiently as possible.

Call it hybrid system,

stacked greenhouse, hyper building,
or simply vertical farm.

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

That's not my words,

according to Dickson Despommier,
the godfather of vertical farming.

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

controlled environments, 100% LED light,

an environment rather easy to control

because all the disturbing
external influences are cut out.

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

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

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

but it's also a matter of taste.

The deeper we get into plant physiology,

the more we learn about so called
secondary metabolites.

Secondary metabolites
are organic compounds

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

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

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

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

and tasting of absolutely nothing.

It's those secondary
metabolites that add taste,

make our food really good
and really healthy.

And as far as we know today,

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

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

So indoor farming as we know it today

is not really a solution,
but vertical farming is.

Let me explain to you why,

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

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

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

And we want to produce
as sustainably as possible

by minimizing resource input.

Food production in the heart of the city

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

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

Perhaps, we even watched
how the food grew.

Over the last months, weeks, days,

we were looking forward
to finally tasting it.

We form a new relationship
with what we eat

as we see where and how it was grown.

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

It's easy to control.

It provides very stable conditions

and therefore high
predictability of the outcomes.

Economically seen, that might make sense.

But why should we bring
the light to the plants

if we could also bring
the plants to the light.

This question might seem weird.

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

as it leads to more energy
efficient production

and better and healthier products.

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

Wow, what an invention.

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

we grow behind transparent facades,

just as in a greenhouse, simply.

But still, there is one challenge left.

In buildings as huge as ours,

the sunlight does not penetrate
the building completely.

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

But we have to make sure

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

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

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

And for this transportation,
we use conveyor belts.

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

such as geography, surroundings,

those belts might be
rotating horizontally,

vertically, or in three dimensions.

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

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

triggered by photo sensors.

So the overall energy
consumption in our farm

is way less than in the black box.

And of course, by letting in sunlight,

we promote the creation
of secondary metabolites,

and therefore we produce
better and healthier food.

Together with the institute
of building and technology at Graz -

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

we develop what is the future of food,

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

What we propose here
will be the new normal.

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

Japan or China are way ahead of us.

A lot of struggling
still lies ahead of us.

Research has to be done
and technology has to improve.

We have to create acceptance

for products grown indoor
in the hearts of our cities,

and we want to help to raise awareness

in how food and energy
depend on each other.

But I am sure vertical farming

plays a crucial part
in securing the future of food

and in securing the future of our planet.

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

(Applause)