I’m a philanthropist I spent most of my
adult life in farms and greenhouses
where I have met many farmers and
growers
they are amazing individuals but most
people don’t appreciate them as much as
they should you see there are many
misconceptions that are farming
especially when it comes to pest
management farmers spray pesticides
under crops for the same reason
oncologists prescribed chemotherapy for
their patients who have cancer the dire
circumstances force us to poison our
body so we live longer it forced us to
put pesticides on our food so we don’t
go hungry we all know the side effects
of these treatments but then you’re
facing a later stage detrimental
affliction your treatment options become
very limited now I’m not here to talk
about pesticides rather the
circumstances that force us to use them
because I believe if we change those
circumstances we can eliminate the need
for pesticides in most cases most
growers are intimately in tune with
their crops after years of growing they
know which plant is just throwing a
tantrum and which plant is generally a
stressed I’ve met growers who could a
smell presence of pests on their crops
but the problem is in large farms and
greenhouses they cannot tend to every
single plant according to the World Bank
in 2016 the average size of a farm and a
greenhouse was 459 acres that’s
equivalent of 347 American football
fields and not all of his farms are
corporate farms in fact 97% of farms in
America are family-owned so in this
massive farms when an outbreak happens
things can easily get out of hand and if
forced farmers to spray pesticides to
contain and control the damage now you
would ask well why can’t we just
go on buy organic food right problem
solved despite the fact that only
affluent people can afford to buy
organic food according to the US
Department of Agriculture only four
percent of the food in the market is
organic majority of our food come from
conventional farms some of our food
actually come from different countries
and they might have different pesticide
regulations altogether but extensive use
of pesticides can be avoided if farmers
can find the problems at earlier stage
you see they have other means of
controlling their crop problem for
example in a greenhouse a farmers find a
small population of pests they can
strategically place biological control
agents these are the good bugs that come
and eat the bad bugs and that’s how they
can control the pest issue without even
a drop of pesticide the main reason
growers use pesticides is because they
find the problem too late and they have
to react with their strongest weapon in
their arsenal because time is of the
essence so how can we tell plants are
about to get sick before the issue get
out of hand
there are many tools and farms that help
farmers find no change in the soil the
temperature available light but the
underlying assumption of all these tools
and technologies is that if we keep the
conditions optimal all of our plants are
going to be happy but growers already
know that’s not necessarily the case if
you have a glass of water in front of
you and I’ll come with a moisture sensor
the best thing I can do is to confirm
that you have water within your Ridge
but I cannot confirm that you’ve been
hydrated the best way that we can ensure
our plants are healthy is to look at
their actual estate as opposed to the
conditions around them and how should we
do that it’s simple if you just ask the
plant
you see plants are like babies they tell
you when they’re not happy actually
plants are more complicated than babies
because when babies are unhappy they cry
and the reason for unhappiness can be I
don’t know dropping the pacifier having
a boo-boo or a vet diaper the response
though is always crying
plants on the other hand are far more
sophisticated plants can talk and they
can’t walk but they can communicate with
each other and with their surrounding
they use info chemicals and defensive
signals that they evolved over millions
of years of evolution that fascinating
defensive mechanism enable them to fend
off intruders or even call for help if
you have done any amount of gardening in
your life you must have noticed the
ladybugs that come and land on your
plants and eat the aphids eating that’s
random no no plants actively send SOS
signals by changing their smell and this
is how the ladybugs find the aphids in
your garden by following this carefully
crafted huge set by plants when plants
cry for help did it convey precise
information about their estate they tell
you what bogeys on them how many and
varying the plant canopy they’re located
studies have shown that plants can even
react to an insect egg before he did
hatch so we have an active communicator
here the plant and a good listener the
grower but in the sterile farming
disconnected the two from each other
because of his sheer size what we need
is a technology that can bring bridge
the gap and bring them two together you
must have heard about all this advances
in agriculture technology from Jones to
robots and sensors but the question is
in what capacity we should learn we
should allow the machines to run our
farms to what extent we should let the
machines
control their food source what’s the
role of the human farmer in this picture
there are two school of thoughts as how
to address this questions on one hand we
have artificial intelligence known as AI
these are autonomous machines that can
reproduce human cognition they can learn
like a human they can solve problems
find issues on their own and the other
hand we have intelligence augmentation
these are computer systems that
supplement human thinking AI machines
tend to work alone while IA machines
extend human abilities there are many
repetitive tasks on farms that
autonomous machines can do greatly
without any human intervention like
sorting the fruits but there are many
tasks that human can do much better than
a machine a machine can only come to
assist the human but it still needs the
guidance of the human operator now don’t
get me wrong
we do need intelligent machines on the
farms feeding a growing population in
the world is a massive challenge we need
the machines but I believe in order to
address the challenge of growing food in
a changing world we must combine both
artificial intelligence and intelligence
augmentation in the foreign technology
now having said that we must not forget
about the central role of the human
farmer and the importance of their
know-how engineers tend to undermine the
value of conventional knowledge of
farmers and that’s wrong expert growers
know what’s best for their crop the
problem is the number of expert growers
are globally declining we cannot educate
enough farmers to meet the demand for
food production and even if we do they
need years and years of experience
before they can get to the mastery level
growing is a mixture of science and art
the knowledge of food production is a
human heritage that deserves
protection the must capture and digitize
knowledge of expert growers it enables
them to extend their presence across
their field through the machine it also
provide a new source of revenue because
now in addition to the crop they can
monetize their know-how and provide that
for novice growers once we reconnect the
human grower to the plant and once we
enable them to find a problem at earlier
stage they can grow our food without
extensive use of pesticides we all
started with a crude idea but over the
years
me and my team developed a platform that
can rapidly and non-invasively measure
plant defensive signals and enable us to
find the problems before you can even
see the symptoms we targeted greenhouses
because you can grow a lot of food in a
small footprint our platform can capture
more than twenty thousand data points
from every square meter of a greenhouse
in less than a second after years and
decades of research we identify the
special biomarkers in plants that they
produce in response to various stress
and these biomarkers are a stress a
specific we actively probe the plans and
measure the type and the level of these
biomarkers and that’s how we can find
out what exactly going on with the plant
we are essentially plant whisperers
it goes like this so I go to a plant and
I say hey mr. tomato how are you doing
and he’s like I don’t feel good I think
they’re a bunch of aphids out there and
this conversation
it happens over that’s kind of 15
milliseconds and I can’t trust the plant
because plants never lie about their own
health so artificial platform learn the
changes in the pattern of plant response
and our ia platform
capture the knowledge of the glory T’s
you cannot capture with a camera or an
environmental sensor things like how
does sick plant a smell how does it feel
when you touch it our roots are deep in
biology but using technology we are
building the operating system of
connected greenhouses our robot can
cover a large greenhouse in few days
pinpoint the problems and place
biological control agents where and when
we’re needed we can pinpoint crop a
stress at the earliest stage our goal is
to build a global center for disease
control for plant health by capturing
billions of data points from various
plant affected by various pests and
diseases and currently we are expanding
our database at the rate of 6 million
data points per hour in addition to that
we are putting together a large
collection of alternative treatments
that enable all growers all over the
world to produce clean food without a
drop of pesticide because we believe
access to clean food is a human right
today only affluent people can afford to
buy high-quality food but new
technologies if used properly can
democratize food quality and enable us
to grow affordable accessible clean food
for all thank you
[Applause]
you
adult life in farms and greenhouses
where I have met many farmers and
growers
they are amazing individuals but most
people don’t appreciate them as much as
they should you see there are many
misconceptions that are farming
especially when it comes to pest
management farmers spray pesticides
under crops for the same reason
oncologists prescribed chemotherapy for
their patients who have cancer the dire
circumstances force us to poison our
body so we live longer it forced us to
put pesticides on our food so we don’t
go hungry we all know the side effects
of these treatments but then you’re
facing a later stage detrimental
affliction your treatment options become
very limited now I’m not here to talk
about pesticides rather the
circumstances that force us to use them
because I believe if we change those
circumstances we can eliminate the need
for pesticides in most cases most
growers are intimately in tune with
their crops after years of growing they
know which plant is just throwing a
tantrum and which plant is generally a
stressed I’ve met growers who could a
smell presence of pests on their crops
but the problem is in large farms and
greenhouses they cannot tend to every
single plant according to the World Bank
in 2016 the average size of a farm and a
greenhouse was 459 acres that’s
equivalent of 347 American football
fields and not all of his farms are
corporate farms in fact 97% of farms in
America are family-owned so in this
massive farms when an outbreak happens
things can easily get out of hand and if
forced farmers to spray pesticides to
contain and control the damage now you
would ask well why can’t we just
go on buy organic food right problem
solved despite the fact that only
affluent people can afford to buy
organic food according to the US
Department of Agriculture only four
percent of the food in the market is
organic majority of our food come from
conventional farms some of our food
actually come from different countries
and they might have different pesticide
regulations altogether but extensive use
of pesticides can be avoided if farmers
can find the problems at earlier stage
you see they have other means of
controlling their crop problem for
example in a greenhouse a farmers find a
small population of pests they can
strategically place biological control
agents these are the good bugs that come
and eat the bad bugs and that’s how they
can control the pest issue without even
a drop of pesticide the main reason
growers use pesticides is because they
find the problem too late and they have
to react with their strongest weapon in
their arsenal because time is of the
essence so how can we tell plants are
about to get sick before the issue get
out of hand
there are many tools and farms that help
farmers find no change in the soil the
temperature available light but the
underlying assumption of all these tools
and technologies is that if we keep the
conditions optimal all of our plants are
going to be happy but growers already
know that’s not necessarily the case if
you have a glass of water in front of
you and I’ll come with a moisture sensor
the best thing I can do is to confirm
that you have water within your Ridge
but I cannot confirm that you’ve been
hydrated the best way that we can ensure
our plants are healthy is to look at
their actual estate as opposed to the
conditions around them and how should we
do that it’s simple if you just ask the
plant
you see plants are like babies they tell
you when they’re not happy actually
plants are more complicated than babies
because when babies are unhappy they cry
and the reason for unhappiness can be I
don’t know dropping the pacifier having
a boo-boo or a vet diaper the response
though is always crying
plants on the other hand are far more
sophisticated plants can talk and they
can’t walk but they can communicate with
each other and with their surrounding
they use info chemicals and defensive
signals that they evolved over millions
of years of evolution that fascinating
defensive mechanism enable them to fend
off intruders or even call for help if
you have done any amount of gardening in
your life you must have noticed the
ladybugs that come and land on your
plants and eat the aphids eating that’s
random no no plants actively send SOS
signals by changing their smell and this
is how the ladybugs find the aphids in
your garden by following this carefully
crafted huge set by plants when plants
cry for help did it convey precise
information about their estate they tell
you what bogeys on them how many and
varying the plant canopy they’re located
studies have shown that plants can even
react to an insect egg before he did
hatch so we have an active communicator
here the plant and a good listener the
grower but in the sterile farming
disconnected the two from each other
because of his sheer size what we need
is a technology that can bring bridge
the gap and bring them two together you
must have heard about all this advances
in agriculture technology from Jones to
robots and sensors but the question is
in what capacity we should learn we
should allow the machines to run our
farms to what extent we should let the
machines
control their food source what’s the
role of the human farmer in this picture
there are two school of thoughts as how
to address this questions on one hand we
have artificial intelligence known as AI
these are autonomous machines that can
reproduce human cognition they can learn
like a human they can solve problems
find issues on their own and the other
hand we have intelligence augmentation
these are computer systems that
supplement human thinking AI machines
tend to work alone while IA machines
extend human abilities there are many
repetitive tasks on farms that
autonomous machines can do greatly
without any human intervention like
sorting the fruits but there are many
tasks that human can do much better than
a machine a machine can only come to
assist the human but it still needs the
guidance of the human operator now don’t
get me wrong
we do need intelligent machines on the
farms feeding a growing population in
the world is a massive challenge we need
the machines but I believe in order to
address the challenge of growing food in
a changing world we must combine both
artificial intelligence and intelligence
augmentation in the foreign technology
now having said that we must not forget
about the central role of the human
farmer and the importance of their
know-how engineers tend to undermine the
value of conventional knowledge of
farmers and that’s wrong expert growers
know what’s best for their crop the
problem is the number of expert growers
are globally declining we cannot educate
enough farmers to meet the demand for
food production and even if we do they
need years and years of experience
before they can get to the mastery level
growing is a mixture of science and art
the knowledge of food production is a
human heritage that deserves
protection the must capture and digitize
knowledge of expert growers it enables
them to extend their presence across
their field through the machine it also
provide a new source of revenue because
now in addition to the crop they can
monetize their know-how and provide that
for novice growers once we reconnect the
human grower to the plant and once we
enable them to find a problem at earlier
stage they can grow our food without
extensive use of pesticides we all
started with a crude idea but over the
years
me and my team developed a platform that
can rapidly and non-invasively measure
plant defensive signals and enable us to
find the problems before you can even
see the symptoms we targeted greenhouses
because you can grow a lot of food in a
small footprint our platform can capture
more than twenty thousand data points
from every square meter of a greenhouse
in less than a second after years and
decades of research we identify the
special biomarkers in plants that they
produce in response to various stress
and these biomarkers are a stress a
specific we actively probe the plans and
measure the type and the level of these
biomarkers and that’s how we can find
out what exactly going on with the plant
we are essentially plant whisperers
it goes like this so I go to a plant and
I say hey mr. tomato how are you doing
and he’s like I don’t feel good I think
they’re a bunch of aphids out there and
this conversation
it happens over that’s kind of 15
milliseconds and I can’t trust the plant
because plants never lie about their own
health so artificial platform learn the
changes in the pattern of plant response
and our ia platform
capture the knowledge of the glory T’s
you cannot capture with a camera or an
environmental sensor things like how
does sick plant a smell how does it feel
when you touch it our roots are deep in
biology but using technology we are
building the operating system of
connected greenhouses our robot can
cover a large greenhouse in few days
pinpoint the problems and place
biological control agents where and when
we’re needed we can pinpoint crop a
stress at the earliest stage our goal is
to build a global center for disease
control for plant health by capturing
billions of data points from various
plant affected by various pests and
diseases and currently we are expanding
our database at the rate of 6 million
data points per hour in addition to that
we are putting together a large
collection of alternative treatments
that enable all growers all over the
world to produce clean food without a
drop of pesticide because we believe
access to clean food is a human right
today only affluent people can afford to
buy high-quality food but new
technologies if used properly can
democratize food quality and enable us
to grow affordable accessible clean food
for all thank you
[Applause]
you
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