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Can we feed the world?

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MAKING THE FUTURE

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Indoor Farming

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Thank you very much.

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There are quite 
some misconceptions about growing

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and today I would like to help you to overcome

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at least seven of these misconceptions.

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So the first misconception is 
that we can keep feeding

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the world's expanding population

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with the existing agricultural technology.

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When we have a closer look at the world,

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we see that we are growing

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

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to live more and more in cities.

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To produce enough food for all these people,

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water is the most important asset.

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In future, water will be more important

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than fossil fuel or energy is today.

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In order to produce enough food,

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

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

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They will get pests and diseases.

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

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

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35 % of the trucks on the road are busy transporting

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

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

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

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

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plants only use 9 % of their potentiality.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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that plants could do much better.

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The third misconception is, 
this is paradise for plants.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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production unit and we can make it multi‑layer,

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because we don't want any sunlight.

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

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

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

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If we would have to produce
200 grams of fresh vegetables

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and fruits for one person a day,

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

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

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

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

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enables us to be totally secure and safe.

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Without changing anything about the genetics,

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but just by optimizing the environment 
where plants are living,

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we can make them more beautiful
and even more nutritious.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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They are not susceptible to pests and diseases,

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so we don't use any pesticides.

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That also solves the fourth misconception:

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

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

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

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

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This is how it looks like.

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(Music)

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This is, of course, the image.

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

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

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

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by uploading growing recipes automatically.

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Those growing recipes 
take care of every minute set point

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to grow perfect lettuce, perfect tomatoes, 
and even guaranteeing

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that the nitrate content of that lettuce is very low.

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

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

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

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

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for instance. We have to harvest them five days prior

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to the consumption moment.

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

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But that is very bad for taste and nutrition.

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

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We want to change foodmiles into foodsteps.

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

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

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

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in the right quantity, meaning we have no waste.

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

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

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at the polar circle or inside the city.

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

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

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or even at the fresh department of your supermarket.

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Or growing lettuce or herbs inside your restaurant.

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

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or you pick your tomatoes from your kitchen drawer.

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Then the last, and seventh, misconception.

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It will take years before this is going to happen.

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

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Within the coming one, two years,

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we will start rolling out this concept.

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

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Indoor farming is the next generation of growing

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and we are totally there to do it today.

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)