invited to a party a friend of mine was
celebrating his PhD was a great evening
we had lots of fun couple of beers
really good homemade food and of course
as he was 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’re running out of soil to
grow our food this was his second
question do you know I was stunned
because was absolutely not aware of that
I was immediately fascinated by those
unknown challenges of food production
and that 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 allergy a solution to grow
fruit locally where we live in the
hearts of our cities and save this
course resources of our planet I was so
thrilled that I quit my job and joined
my friend she found the vertical forum
Institute so this party two years ago
led my way to you because what I learn
about food production every day in my
work at the 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 a lot of 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
in the middle of fields Meadows forests
some farms around I buy locally grown
organic food every Friday at our market
in my hometown Upton Simon I know the
chick will personally whose axe 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 vegetable 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
food comes from
Motoko so in Brazil once a rainforest
now devastated for the production of our
soy beans this is where Tomatoes come
from al meriya
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 al
meriya
to your table fossil resources are
needed to heat the glass houses 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 everybody you
eat you consume oil really do we really
wanna eat food fueled of fuel 1/3 1/3 of
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 only 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 were expected to be 9 or
even 10 billion people on earth 70% 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 not to mention land used
by animals defeat us in 2050 we need
additional arable land as big as
Australia and two whole continent the
good news there still is arable land
available the bad news it’s mostly
covered in the rainforests so the only
way to access new arable land is
deforestation we cut into a planet
screen lung you 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
or rain forests cultivate new land
cultivation means destruction in this
case destruction of living environment
for animals insects as people of course
and not even to mention the damage done
to oxygen production this picture was
taken by NASA in spring of 2017
you chose to Congo Delta in Africa it’s
still a bit abstract so let me give you
an 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’s so many products labeled as
domestic Austrian products so 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 see yes we
should be let me give you two figures
about 80 percent 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
by organic locally grown products it
preferably only seasonal fruits and
vegetables eat less meat generally be a
little 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 bystanders of history we make
history well at least that’s 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 and 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 split in
soil and energy so to solve this problem
we 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 factor 50 or even
more and by growing an intelligently
designed multifunctional buildings we
massively reduce the energy needed we
can grow food without or almost without
fossil resources our solution today’s
solution of vertical forums remember the
party I told you about years ago my
friend celebrating was Daniel pot music
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
multifunctional 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 form
what you see here is the blueprint of
the future of food
that’s not my words according to Dixon
deep for me 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 a cut out but if we consider
not only soil but also energy and
released scarce resource why do we cut
out the most precious resource we have
sunlight sunlight that’s a matter of
overall energy efficiency but it’s also
a matter of taste the deeper we dig into
plant physiology the more we learn about
so-called secondary metabolites
secondary metabolites or 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 maker 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
the auto
violet and red light as provided by LEDs
so indoor forming 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
multifunctional 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 meet at Newmarket 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 shall we bring the
light to the plants if we can 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 forms we
use sunlight to grow the food wow what
instead of putting lots LED in the farm
and turned them on for 16 hours a day we
grow behind transparent facades just as
in a greenhouse simply but still 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 ensure this we
transport the plants through the
building we deliver the plans to the
facade into 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 form but they only go on when
were Native 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 God’s University buildings and energy
sorry at God’s University of Technology
we develop what is the future of food
multifunctional vertical forms in the
heart of our cities what we propose here
will be the new normal it’s not today at
least not in Europe Japan or China way
ahead of us a lot of struggling still
lies ahead of us research has to be done
technology has to improve
we have to create acceptance for
products grown endure in the hearts of
our cities and we want to help to raise
awareness and have food and energy
depend on each other but I’m 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 I was able today to plant
the seed in your head
[Applause]
[Music] [Applause]