Indoor planting - Gertjan Meeuws at TEDxBrainport

Gertjan says we are using too much land, too much water, too much pesticides and too much transportation to deliver fresh food. He is managing partner of PlantLab, where he and his partners are not looking for improving the existing supply chain, but for creating a totally new and better one, based on their invention: Plant Paradise.

Can we feed the world?

MAKING THE FUTURE

Indoor Farming

Thank you very much.

There are quite
some misconceptions about growing

and today I would like to help you to overcome

at least seven of these misconceptions.

So the first misconception is
that we can keep feeding

the world's expanding population

with the existing agricultural technology.

When we have a closer look at the world,

we see that we are growing

from 7 billion to 9 billion,
and that we are moving

to live more and more in cities.

To produce enough food for all these people,

water is the most important asset.

In future, water will be more important

than fossil fuel or energy is today.

In order to produce enough food,

we will create new land
for growing food in sub‑optimal conditions.

In those conditions, plants are not very happy,
and they will become ill.

They will get pests and diseases.

We will take more and more pesticides,
chemicals, to treat them.

Another thing: even if our trucks
would run on water in future,

35 % of the trucks on the road are busy transporting

food or food parts from A to B,
and probably, in the end, back to A.

So we have to change the way
that we feed the world today.

The second misconception:
we must make plants adapt to nature.

This is not true. In nature,
and even in the best Dutch greenhouses,

plants only use 9 % of their potentiality.

In real nature, they maybe use 2 or 3 %.

So plants are so very smart
that they are able to adapt any circumstances

in order to survive.
They can do that with very little

of their potentiality. But that opens
a lot of possibilities for us.

If we would know how to make plants
really happy, they are able to bring

much more to us. We started back in 1989,
23 years ago, studying plants

as they grow in the fields, in greenhouses.
We have worked for almost

10 years on producing mathematical models,
in order to understand them.

The more we understood about plants,
the more we started to see

that plants could do much better.

The third misconception is,
this is paradise for plants.

It's not true ‑‑ this is paradise for us.
If plants were to choose,

they would say, "This is paradise."
Plants don't like sunlight.

They have used to live under the sunlight,
but the only light

that they take up from the sunlight is red and blue,
and a little far red.

So this is what plant paradise really looks like.
It's a merger of plant

physiological know‑how and high technology.
We give plants only red,

blue and far red LED light,
and we combine that with very sophisticated

climate control. By doing so,
we are able to grow crops in this kind of buildings.

We call this a plant production unit. It's a multi‑layer

production unit and we can make it multi‑layer,

because we don't want any sunlight.

In the unit itself,
there is only this mixture of red and blue.

And in front of the unit where the people are working,
of course there is daylight,

or white light. Otherwise, you couldn't see
the real colors of the crops.

If we would have to produce
200 grams of fresh vegetables

and fruits for one person a day,

it only takes one square meter in this sort of building.

So in order to feed 100,000 citizens,
it would only take a plant production unit

the size of 100 times 100 meters, in 10 layers.

And if you take a closer look at the production unit,
this way of producing

enables us to be totally secure and safe.

Without changing anything about the genetics,

but just by optimizing the environment
where plants are living,

we can make them more beautiful
and even more nutritious.

And we can secure a very great taste,
much better than we were used to.

We are able to improve the yields
by two, three times the best greenhouse.

And even 30-40 times compared to the open field.
And very important,

we are able to save at least 90 % on the water use.

The big gift to us was that we never had
any pests or diseases.

So it appears to be true that
when plants are very happy, they never get ill.

They are not susceptible to pests and diseases,

so we don't use any pesticides.

That also solves the fourth misconception:

Growing food is done horizontally and takes a lot of water and pesticides.

It's not true. We are able to grow any crop.

It doesn't matter if it's tomatoes,
lettuce, strawberries, cucumbers.

We can do anything ‑‑ even medicines ‑‑
medical herbs, for instance.

This is how it looks like.

(Music)

This is, of course, the image.

And this is a plant production unit
that we have built over two years ago.

And it's up and running now 24/7
for more than 100 weeks.

It works perfectly
and we are able to control these units long distance,

by uploading growing recipes automatically.

Those growing recipes
take care of every minute set point

to grow perfect lettuce, perfect tomatoes,
and even guaranteeing

that the nitrate content of that lettuce is very low.

As you see, they are really green
when they come out.

The fifth misconception is that food must grow
where nature is kind to it,

and then we transport it.
That's why we grow 10,000 hectares of tomatoes

in the south of Spain
and then we transport these tomatoes to Moscow,

for instance. We have to harvest them five days prior

to the consumption moment.

Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to be transported.

But that is very bad for taste and nutrition.

So we want to grow them just where we live,
where the consumers are.

We want to change foodmiles into foodsteps.

We want to go back to the old concept
where we consume food

that is just harvested. That makes a lot of difference.

In this system, we are able
to harvest exactly at the right moment,

in the right quantity, meaning we have no waste.

And we can do this no matter what climate,
no matter what season,

day or night and any place. We can do this in desert,

at the polar circle or inside the city.

Then there is a sixth misconception:
food must be grown large scale.

That's not true either.
We could do it in the center of cities

or even at the fresh department of your supermarket.

Or growing lettuce or herbs inside your restaurant.

Or even smaller, you grow your own herbs
in your kitchen

or you pick your tomatoes from your kitchen drawer.

Then the last, and seventh, misconception.

It will take years before this is going to happen.

That's not true. We are totally ready
to do this, actually, today.

Within the coming one, two years,

we will start rolling out this concept.

Especially in Asia, China, India, Africa, etcetera.

Indoor farming is the next generation of growing

and we are totally there to do it today.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)