TEDxWindyCity -- Dickson Despommier -- The Vertical Farm

Dickson talks about Vertical Farming: A 21st century hunger and conservation solution that promises, "urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming."
Dickson Despommier is the Emeritus Professor of Public Health and Microbiology at Columbia University, and the vertical farming concept grew out of a medical ecology course he taught in 1999. Articles about the subject have been published in The New York Times, U.S. News & World Report, Popular Science, Scientific American and Maxim. In October 2010, his first book on the subject, The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century, was published. More can be learned through his website, verticalfarm.com.
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In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created a program called TEDx. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. Our event is called TEDxWINDYCITY, where x = independently organized TED event. At our TEDxWINDYCITY event, TEDTalks video and live speakers will combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events, including ours, are self-organized.
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[@brianalbano475]

Its crazy that the Newark vertical farm is actually open now! Thank Dr.Despommier for making it possible.

[@Alexfantastico26]

This gives me hope, and that's something we all need right now

[@AlbertaUrbanGarden]

What an absolutely fantastic TedX talk by the creative inventor of the Vertical Farm concept. There is a whole lot of potential to help Humanity continue to move on in an ever improving way!

[@johnohalloran3446]

There is currently a vertical farm in Singapore that sell picked the same day produce that is just 30% above imports from China. For a start up technology that is a fairly impressive fete. One issue is that like renewable energy it is a direct threat to an established industry and does not provide a sure market share for anyone investing at this point. It will take time to come along but it will start in places where the is almost not land to grow food and an expanding economy.

[@ElectricEn3rgy]

This is what I want to do for my generation! not something complex that costs billions, but just taking a step into this direction! If the farmers in the Amazon started doing this, then mass de forestation will no longer be needed to grow corn!

[@paulmoorman1584]

anks for such an inspiring speech, lecture...

[@SeanTalksTooMuch]

@PaulCarnage Very true, i often hear people bring up the "loss of farming jobs" as a monetary concern. They don't realize that a monetary system actually creates most of the necessity to sell labor. A farmer may lose his job, but would gain a world without food and water scarcity

[@insung0111]

We must make it real! We can!

[@GenshinIdiot]

Umm it does make sense, it would save land to farm, and leave the earth to repair itself, I don't think it would be very expensive because it already costs money to create deforestation and build greenhouses etc.. But what this guy failed to say, is that the real unsustainable way of eating, is eating animal products, they use 70% of all agricultural land and obviously most of the water, (not to mention the pollution of water from farming animals), because killing 60 billions land animals per year, means feeding 60 billions land animal every year, and yeah sure chickens eat less, but cows, bulls, pigs, and goats eat more!... In fact it is so unsustainable that with what the UK produces of grain an other plant based food to feed animals, we could feed almost all hungry children in Africa... And yes I am saying that this idea is good, but the real way to protect the environment is to eat a full plant based diet... And yes all the nutrients we need we find them in plant based... And also feeding 10 billions people in 50 years time will take less land than feeding 70 billions land animals in 50 years time, period.

[@wapsiwilly]

Aquaculture actually fits pretty well into this kind of agriculture. Traditionally animals have formed a critical part of these kinds of efficient, closed loop systems of agriculture.

[@GenshinIdiot]

Not really, if you take into notice, that fish raised on in land pools, literally have to be feed antibiotic because they breath their own feaces, due to lack of space, and those raised in the ocean, in little pens, create ocean dead zones... It is not such a good idea. Some ideas are to raise shellfish to cleanse these zones of the extra nutrient, but it just seems as another layer on top of the problem, when you can easily, just stop consuming fish...

[@wapsiwilly]

Daniel Palau Fish raised in hydroponic facilities provide fertilizer and have their water continuously cleaned by the plants roots. If you want to criticize animal husbandry on ethical or (quasi)religious grounds go ahead but it's dishonest to jump on to a video about new technologies and how much agriculture needs to change and start harping about conventional factory farming. Yes, it's a terrible idea; that's why this video exists and why most people here are watching it. There's nothing inherently inefficient or environmentally destructive about eating animal products. Animals can eat a lot of things humans can't, including weeds, and their waste makes excellent fertilizer. For example; goats go gaga over ragweed, a common and aggressive weed(and allergen) that farmers despise, and turn it into human consumable milk and meat in the process. If you want to tell me it's wrong to milk or slaughter goats then be my guest but don't feed me some line about how I only need to eat two bushels of ragweed a day to get the same amount of protein. It's not going to happen.

[@GenshinIdiot]

The best way to change agriculture is to end animal agriculture, period. There is NO way it can be done sustainable, with the demand of 7 billion people, not eating animals not only makes us way more sustainable, but way more healthy, in fact healthy. "Animals eat plants that we cant" 1. We obviously do not need to eat those plants, 2. if we stop raising animals for food, BANG! We got so much land to grow the plants we can eat, we can even give some back to nature... It is not fair to interpret my opinion as (quasi)religious, nor to comment either on this video, when you have not done your homework www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/fish-the-new-factory-farmed-animals/

[@WranglersRopers]

+Piensa VeganⓋ So you are saying kill all the animals so that we can dedicate all the land resources to growing crops and vegetables?

[@sukosuko1]

@IAmJasonThomas yes, i agree these small scale hydroponics are much more realistic than vertical farming. I think I might try it out. They do use a lot of electric power however. After fukushima, with growing resistance to nuclear power and increasingly expensive fossil fuels, I'm starting to wonder what the effect of extremely expensive energy will be on the world 100 years from now. maybe we will all move back to the farm.

[@teddybruscie]

Yea I thought that until I learned about an organization called Growing Power. The CEO Will Allen announced on the Colbert Report that will be building a Vertical Farm soon. And I know he's not rich, so I wondered how he would do it, but then I look at a couple growing power videos and I don't think it will be as expensive as I initially thought. I don't think Growing Power's will be as technologically advanced as an Agrocorp's will be, but I'm sure they'll figure it out.

[@bakkenkegan]

the talk starts at 00:47

[@jcng5]

would this be cost effective?

[@satya.antonio]

"In ecology there's a usefulness for everything that occurs, but in the world that we've created, we are busy chocking ourselves to death."

[@neuroneun]

Holy shit it's coach POP!

[@rayandhawan8066]

gregggggg

[@curingaging00]

@MokomaSusi Yea, I would leave many of the robots out of the equation, but the other ideas in the Venus Project are good.

[@efortune357]

Vertical Farms Fully Automated!

[@teddybruscie]

Well you can start like most people do and will eventually build up to. Start with a simple Greenhouse, then work your way up to a Vertical Farm. If Growing Power succeeds it should make it easier for others to follow. I'm just worried about what happens when Will Allen either retires or passes. Who will take over. Will that person sell the organization to a Agrocorp? I think that's what Agrocorps are waiting on. They are waiting until he does all the work of building it and just buy it out.

[@Haliotro]

How?

[@mastereck]

13:21 -- The lecturer mentions "EuroFresh Farms" as a "good example" of food being produced indoors. I did a little searching, and unfortunately they declared bankruptcy twice, most recently in early 2013, allegedly due to a slump in tomato prices. So I have to wonder if these alternative farming methods are really economically feasible.

[@JN003]

so, if you found a crop that maybe high in demand that is low in supply would the economics not be an issue ? im also very interested to know if indoor lighting was used instead of sunlight, do the plants have the same nutrients and chemical structure taste (ie a carbon copy) of outdoor organically grown plants?

[@Mujklob]

Protip: his website is vertical farm (dot) org, not vertical farming

[@TheMusketITuckedIt204]

Does anyone else think he kinda looks like the Spurs coach Gregg Popovich? Only smarter and nicer lol

[@neuroneun]

YEAH!

[@teddybruscie]

We have more than enough money for this & it pretty much pays for it's self. If you look at all of the unnecessary corn subsidies you will see a lot of money just from that. That's only assuming this can only be done by government. But we all know this isn't the case. Agro-corpos can only benefit from this. If they run their numbers, sure the initial cost will suck, but it will pay for it's self. Now they will only have to worry about the land they have left, which will probably become suburbs.

[@bluebimmer33]

Yeah cause that would totally work.

[@efortune357]

@curingaging00 automation moves forward whether we like it or not. This has been happening for decades in our current system. Difference is in this system people become unemployed. In a resource based economy using automation means more freedom. Google " Foxconn to replace workers with 1 million robots in 3 years " stories like this one will continue to happen in order for companies to compete. It seems unemployment will continue to rise. It's already happening in this system.

[@wjdonner]

Anyone who wants to understand why we excel in anti-nature behavior needs to read Carlos Castaneda - The Active Side of Infinity (Chapter - Mud Shadows).

[@NewerJorg]

@aclinard Neither in the talk nor in his book he claims it's proven science and ready to go: He wants to raise interrest in the topic so some vertical farm prototypes get built and research is done. He speaks of some school project "vertical farm" and also about "the genomes" of coming generations that he wishes to look into this idea - because 1 thing is clear (for this you'll find a broad scientific consensus): the way agriculture works today won't feed the people of tomorrow in a sust. way!

[@sukosuko1]

I highly recommend listening to Dickson Despommier on the 'this week in parasitism' podcast, his original research area. Its really good. The vertical farm idea is a nice idea but not economically feasible.

[@AJourneyFromNothing]

@Sharangir LOL!. Damn straight(:

[@teddybruscie]

I didn't say anything about Capitalism, but that's another thing that giving it to the government would be. This kind of tech is very Pro-Capitalism because of it's vast possibilities. The government would never be able to fulfill it's potential.

[@smash1man]

watch Zeitgeist moving forward

[@mikolajdubiel1384]

Lovely idea, but we need to make sure the bees and other pollinating insects are still around by the time we get to it :)

[@rayandhawan8066]

Not only that, many people will fear to adapt this lifestyle due to the fear of the unknown. Not to mention the costs that many areas will be unable to afford.

[@mikolajdubiel1384]

Actually since then I have heard that the idea has been implemented on quite a large scale in Japan :)

[@user-tu9ox4hj9g]

No need for artificial lighting, if rotation is used strategically synched with the Suns movement. Rotate the farms as needed to have full sun exposure and artificial lighting is eliminated.

[@RoySherfan]

I agree they could leverage sunlight during the day, but at night they must resort to LEDs.

[@anthonymorris6473]

Rotating the farms would likely cost as much if not more than using LED lighting. The farms would be pretty heavy and machines to do so would have to be pretty hefty themselves. It also doesn't sound terribly safe to rotate a large building around. Such machinery would likely also be prone to mechanical problems which would cost money to fix. LEDs are simpler and that can lead to reduced costs.

[@RoySherfan]

+Anthony Morris I agree. They could leverage sunlight in other ways anyway such as via solar panels and even though there are sizable inefficiencies, the plants only utilise a narrow spectrum of sunlight so using LEDs could be more efficient than direct sunlight.

[@user-tu9ox4hj9g]

Anthony Morris I agree.

[@TheHooraman]

Just use money for good dont get rid of it..

[@teddybruscie]

Not only that our government is practically working for almost every Corporation so it would be just as bad. If not worse.

[@dmfc593]

"We have chosen to live in cities" Um, I think this guy needs to do some research in to the US during the 1870's. The movement to cities was not very voluntary...

[@daddyleon]

+David Longfellow Choices are not always free individual, sometimes they're made in the top and forced down.

[@GenoSkill]

CAPTAIN PLANET

[@AJourneyFromNothing]

Get rid of the monetary system (money) and this will be extremely possible.

[@mdlittle5466]

Population growth has radically reduced over the passed 20 or so years. At the current rate of birth, it looks to be that the population is stabilizing at 7 billion. Please research the work done by Hans Gosling. You may find it surprising that there is no need for population control when cultures have access to relevant education, instead of institutionalized beliefs...

[@WranglersRopers]

The economics of your proposal are dubious when considering the cost and availability of urban real estate vs rural. And your seeming assumption that all farming practices which are performed outdoor are harmful to our environment and not sustainable are very insulting to a farmer such as myself. However, where I feel you are bang on is the notion to recycle and reuse the incredible amount of nutrients we import into condensed areas with little in the way of a plan for incorporating them back into the system from which they were removed. Great strides are being taken in rural areas to deal with problems of over fertilization, to match plant nutritional requirements with nutrient applications. Our planets nutrients are for the most part a finite resource which need to be recycled to stay balanced. Creating an urban recapture is a huge part of the link. Farming in skyscrapers, on the other hand, is going to take a lot more selling.

[@epicbluerat9999]

+WranglersRopers I personally have decided to dedicate my life to this concept, I feel sure I'm not alone in being dedicated. We will farm our food in cities, allowing farmlands to be reclaimed by nature. We are far to intelligent to be so inefficient.

[@HanZhang1994]

@MrGamestop101 watch us fix it in 100 years.

[@merjaju]

His idea is based on fear. Not on interconnectedness and sharing.

[@MSpeer-ss3dm]

for the first half he doesnt even talk about vertical farms. biggest introduction ive ever seen

[@stm91]

..not yet at least.

[@ecologic73]

boring...

[@bluebimmer33]

Get this guy an oxygen tank. Its obnoxious listening to him huff and puff.

[@foxiiiiik]

GO VEGAN AND SAVE THE PLANET !!!

[@mikelen3375]

This guy is not a scientist but a big liar!

[@Scoob505]

explain?

[@scottalias]

Professor Despommier is a brilliant and accomplished scientist.