Can strawberries grown inside a building taste sweeter than those grown in a field? Farming entrepreneur Hiroki Koga explores how his team is combining solar-powered vertical farms with AI, robotics and indoor bee colonies to grow delicious strawberries year-round — and how this practice, if widely adopted, could deliver a harvest of benefits for the future of food. (Recorded at TED2024 on April 16, 2024)
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@Bogas76
October 3, 2024 at 9:44 am
No. You play silly with nature you will be punished . It’s a matter of time .
@umwha
October 3, 2024 at 1:17 pm
It’s just shelves. It’s growing plants on shelves
@darinherrick9224
October 3, 2024 at 4:19 pm
and pesticides and herbicides aren’t playing with nature???
@TheyJustCallMeDom
October 3, 2024 at 10:20 am
But fruits are becoming so sweet that they are even giving the animals diabetes
@user-gs8nv7lf2g
October 3, 2024 at 10:43 am
Except for, cucumbers from vertical Farming causing diarrhia, the Natural ones doesnt. I am No expert for Farming or agriculture bit my digestive system seems to be picky….
@Picci25021973
October 3, 2024 at 11:04 am
I grow my strawberries in the fertile ground, using homemade compost, sun and spring water. With all the respect to vertical farming, there’s no match to flavor and consistence.
@AdvantestInc
October 3, 2024 at 11:15 am
The shift from a Budweiser factory to a strawberry vertical farm is a fantastic example of how we can repurpose existing spaces for a sustainable future.
@acornhomestead3575
October 3, 2024 at 11:20 am
I love your passion, and I applaud your innovation. But…
A few decades ago not everyone could afford steak, or mince (hamburger) then we started to mass produce meat (chicken included). Now we are over-producing meat and a lot goes to waste because the choice of locations and sheer volume of product.
How do you plan to deal with the over-production, and under-consumed products when people get bored/sick off/need a change? Will you freeze them, or ship them to further away places? Will they become the next fight against Air pollution?
I understand mass production is almost needed to offset the cost of the AI and Robot assistance and while I love strawberries “seasonal” fruits and vegetables are important both for soil and humans.
Could we just take better care of our environments as to not have such severe weather that dashes crops.
I’m a wee homesteader, I have strawberry plants. And while I did have some success this year (combinations of being just transplanted this year, poor weather, bug infestation, farm location, likely some soil issues also) I’m hopeful that next year my crops will produce ridiculous amounts like my peas did this year.
I’d rather have a bug-bitten, soil-grown, sober bee-pollinated seasonal variety than the 100% environmentally controlled, 100% perfect variety.
But I completely understand your experiences with western fruit flavours🤮
@zettaiengineer4202
October 3, 2024 at 11:29 am
Vertical farming could be competitive in seasonal fresh produce but not with calorie dense foods made of corn, wheat, rice, or soy nor animal feed.
@ilaphroaig
October 3, 2024 at 11:35 am
$10 for a few strawberries? Insane. Vertical farming has already long been around here in the Netherlands. It is profitable.
@ANGÉLIQUEBELR
October 3, 2024 at 11:54 am
Sweeter future indeed 🥹♥️
@woody1856
October 3, 2024 at 12:12 pm
I truly hope this is the future of fruit farming. It will also need to work in harmony with the labor force.
@northernnaysayer1240
October 3, 2024 at 12:34 pm
Vertical farming is one of the most inefficient and expensive ways to grow food, its been a proven failure for decades now, only ,ade popular by tech bros who have never worked in AG and know nothing about growing.
All that plastic and noone has even thought of the microplastics in EVERYTHING you grow. Stupid, short sighted idea thats going to cause massive issues. You want to grow vertically? Do it outside using methods used for thousands of years.
@IngeniousDimensions369
October 3, 2024 at 1:20 pm
😍😍😍😍
@InsaneTreefrog
October 3, 2024 at 1:20 pm
Big deal. Mark Watney grew potatoes on Mars years ago, this is nothing special
@kevoreilly6557
October 3, 2024 at 1:59 pm
Honestly – vertical farm wheat or soy or rice … then let’s talk
Seriously – garbage
@johnnyrabbitslaughing5761
October 3, 2024 at 2:39 pm
I’m just curious about what happens to the hundreds of thousands of farmers who will lose their entire livelihood due to this
@komfyrion
October 4, 2024 at 5:37 am
What happened to the millions of farmers who lost their livelihood during industrialisation?
@AQuantumCraig
October 3, 2024 at 3:36 pm
Amazing!!
@5678connie
October 3, 2024 at 6:18 pm
Think of all those empty malls – we could even include housing along side vertical farming.
@frenchtoast4574
October 3, 2024 at 6:29 pm
“…thanks to data science and AI…”
@rdapigleo
October 3, 2024 at 6:33 pm
Awesome talk, TED brings the optimistic future again. 🙏
@lavidaesunviaje5169
October 3, 2024 at 6:37 pm
Yey! we dont need farmers anymore!!
@garciavashchino1
October 3, 2024 at 6:59 pm
I couldn’t help but think about Judge Dredd where they had the Mega Buildings but in these buildings they could have Vertical farms inside them so that people can shop in their own buildings FRESH FOOD….
@toni4729
October 3, 2024 at 7:00 pm
Keep it up. Do it with more and more fruits and vegetables, teach more and more people to do it as well. We no longer want to be poisoned by chemicals. We’ve had enough of them. Our animals have also had more than enough chemicals to kill us all as well. If you can grow fresh food vertically, there will be more land for animals to eat fresh grass as well. The world will be a much healthier place. Thank you for this talk.
@toni4729
October 3, 2024 at 7:03 pm
Just one question: Why are the solar power units on the grass and not on the roofs where they should be.
@만찐두빵-n5i
October 8, 2024 at 1:23 pm
It doesn’t matter where they are. I think they installed the solar power units on the grass to get more lights to use more area.
@Melissa0774
October 3, 2024 at 8:19 pm
I wonder if they could figure out how to grow grapefruits that you don’t need to put sugar on.
@TomEdwardi
October 3, 2024 at 8:20 pm
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@DerickSams
October 3, 2024 at 8:20 pm
I managed to grow a nest egg of around 120k to over a Million. I’m especially grateful to Adviser Ruth Ann Tsakonas, for her expertise and exposure to different areas of the market.
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October 3, 2024 at 8:21 pm
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October 3, 2024 at 8:21 pm
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@TnJxss
October 3, 2024 at 9:31 pm
Awesome concept that many should be gaining inspiration from.
@TnJxss
October 3, 2024 at 9:33 pm
Many people aren’t listening, instead of expanding outward. We can expand downwards or upwards.
@JumpingRabbit-s6i
October 4, 2024 at 5:15 am
and that’s exactly what vertical means
@engineersintravel4377
October 3, 2024 at 11:14 pm
I’ve heard before Japan has problems with berries supply, but in Russia strawberries just grow in every countryside or as a home plants, in a grocery store 1kg for $5, sorry man wrong country to born
@mel_arquiza
October 4, 2024 at 1:10 am
“Brilliantly and intelligently AI innovation that counts that serve it’s true purpose. A better produce outcome for a better world.”
❤❤❤👍👍👍🙏🙏🙏
@syedsaqibrazarizvi
October 4, 2024 at 6:05 am
“Absolutely inspiring talk, Hiroki! 🌱 The transformation of a Budweiser factory into a vertical strawberry farm is a brilliant example of innovation in agriculture. It’s amazing to see how vertical farming not only addresses food security but also repurposes existing structures for sustainable practices. I can’t wait to see how this approach evolves and impacts our future food systems! 🍓✨”
@tanhimdhrubo8128
October 4, 2024 at 7:26 am
I have liked your presentation
I appreciate your decision
Go ahed❤
Love from Bangladesh 🇧🇩
@jasonward808
October 4, 2024 at 7:44 am
This is exciting
@zarazalazar
October 4, 2024 at 9:53 am
This gives me hope for the future.
@Morberis
October 4, 2024 at 11:39 pm
Man, vertical farming keeps failing in North America where we have plentiful land. There are use cases for it but it doesn’t work everywhere. Having to pay for power for lighting vs free sunlight is a huge cost.
@CanadaBananaFarms
October 5, 2024 at 1:05 am
Also depends if you can have solar helping out and depends on each state, electric prices vary from state to state and from province or province.
@Morberis
October 5, 2024 at 1:18 am
@@CanadaBananaFarms Solar just increases the initial cost of the capital investment and the maintenance costs. Don’t forget the maintenance costs for all those lights that need to be running when they could have been off. Compared to free it’s a huge cost.
It’s also much more efficient to just let in that sunlight rather than converting it to electricity and then back to light. Sure now you have a purpose built building but in exchange its operating costs are much lower and you get a better growing product. Full spectrum light does make a quality difference unfortunately.
@CanadaBananaFarms
October 5, 2024 at 2:27 am
@@Morberisthe problem with greenhouses and the free sunlight, you still consume a ton of electricity with huge fans trying to control the heat temperatures. We have tried it and it’s crazy how much we consume in electricity especially in peak demand hours. I personally like the geothermal play or a biodigester. Have you seen the movie “The need to grow”, excellent film on how simply to create electricity and heat for a greenhouse facility.
@Morberis
October 5, 2024 at 2:49 am
@@CanadaBananaFarms the ones near me don’t have any fans for cooling, natural wind ventilation because they orientated the building to take advantage of it and it blows through a wall swamp cooler which lets them also control the humidity. That’s in addition to the roof open by having panels swivel.
I actually don’t think I’ve ever seen a modern commercial greenhouse that uses fans and I’ve travelled a fair bit to do work on them.
I can respect that you have your own experience though. I don’t understand why you would use fans though, the best you will get is down to ambient temperatures and you can get that with natural ventilation.
@samuelzev4076
October 5, 2024 at 9:17 am
The future of vertical farming is already here. I have hydroponic rig on my roof that grows about 120 vegetables per harvest and I have been eating ny own greens to the point of getting bored of eating them
@urbanstrencan
October 5, 2024 at 12:04 pm
This is the future, I just started experimenting with vertical farming at home here in Slovenia ❤❤.
Great video
@Minus-One-san
October 6, 2024 at 7:36 am
The topic, the gestures, the presentation, everything is just so pefect !!!
@amodjp
October 6, 2024 at 1:52 pm
The world needs more of vertical and roof top gardens to reduce heat and give space in densely populated areas
@MikeHodgkinson
October 6, 2024 at 10:55 pm
Convert the office towers as more people work from home… Automated downtown farmer’s markets and deliveries 😋
@yannroth
October 7, 2024 at 4:59 am
It is the least resilient way to grow strawberries. If we rely too much on this technology to feed people, it will get dirty when the supply chains are going to fail. This is what we can find in dystopia.
@YeshuaAlBhagwani
October 7, 2024 at 8:47 am
As someone who studied regenerative agriculture in university this is a really cool concept from a few perspectives.
One, now more than ever we need hope, and this system provides people hope. It makes you wonder, “Maybe a container of organic strawberries wont cost $10.00 for forever.”
This is also a great model we could use to provide clean, healthy food to people in masse while we transition the conventional agriculture system away from pesticides, tilling, and other environmentally degrading practices towards regenerative organic agricultural practices.
That being said, this is not the end solution to the food problem. This model requires tons of things which are equally destructive to the environment. All those wires, lights, robots, solar panels, etc… Where do you think they came from? Someone mined those metals, extracted the oil used for plastic from the Earth, likely polluted large amounts of land making the solar panels. What do you think happens when the robots are replaced? What are the odds every single component is recycled?
On a human level – do you want all of your food grown by robots? There is something really special about knowing who grew your food when you go shopping at a local farmers market or CSA. Robots offer none of that. Just clean, sterile, food units.
Finally – the Earth is our Mother. The Sun is our Father. The Universe has created systems of growing food over the last couple trillion years that are so much more efficient than anything the mind of man could come up with. I know where my future lies – out in the field, growing food with my wife and kids under the sun with our feet firmly planted on the Earth.
I tend to be wary of anyone claiming that the best solution for humanity moving forward is one which is rooted in technology rather than natural systems. Technology is relatively new on the scene. Living as a human being in tune with the natural world has a much longer proven record of sustainability and success.
I believe the best use of technologies such as these is to use them to make healthy food as accessible as possible while buying our conventional farmers enough time to transition to organic regenerative practices, but I hope the sweeter future ultimately comes from strawberries grown in rich, healthy, organic soil. Not factory farms owned by hedge funds.
@th3gughy
October 7, 2024 at 1:23 pm
I think this is one of the most misleading TED videos I’ve ever watched.. this is the pitch for a startup, not for something innovative or needed. There is so much incomplete and misleading information that it’s the opposite of informative, it should be taken down! Yes, this is better than any GMO, but GMO done well can be so much better than this..
@Sq7Arno
October 7, 2024 at 7:46 pm
Bravo. Valuable work. The science and data is so very important. Vertical farms are capital intensive to get off the ground as businesses. However I’m certain that one day there will be a massive body of data informing entrepreneurs on how to make such operations profitable and highly productive. For a wide variety of produce. Maybe even grains, and mushrooms. Optimally, in the shortest possible time, with the least possible risk. And it’s not out of the question that even the building of such facilities may one day be automated, and highly optimized. Tech improvement just doesn’t have brakes. Traditional methods are forever constrained. It’s like you say. See the progress in 5 years. Forever is still to come.
Also, well done with the bees. We may one day be able to have machines do pollination as effectively; But I doubt it would ever be as energy efficient. At least such would be a mean feat indeed.
@neilifill4819
October 8, 2024 at 10:54 pm
This is so great! I’m curious… who financed these guys to get started and to do all the experimentation? In 2018, they were barely producing anything. They impressively got better and scaled up. But, that’s the part of the story I wish he had time to share.
@donaldauguston9740
October 9, 2024 at 2:06 am
Outstanding video. I wish he and his team all the luck in the world. DA