Can we create the "perfect" farm? - Brent Loken

Transcriber: TED Translators Admin Reviewer: Mirjana Čutura

About 10,000 years ago, humans began to farm.

This agricultural revolution was a turning point in our history

that enabled people to settle, build and create.

In short, agriculture enabled the existence of civilization.

Today, approximately 40 percent of our planet is farmland.

Spread all over the world,

these agricultural lands are the pieces to a global puzzle

we are all facing:

in the future, how can we feed every member of a growing population

a healthy diet?

Meeting this goal will require

nothing short of a second agricultural revolution.

The first agricultural revolution

was characterized by expansion and exploitation,

feeding people at the expense of forests, wildlife and water

and destabilizing the climate in the process.

That's not an option the next time around.

Agriculture depends on a stable climate

with predictable seasons and weather patterns.

This means we can't keep expanding our agricultural lands,

because doing so will undermine the environmental conditions

that make agriculture possible in the first place.

Instead, the next agricultural revolution

will have to increase the output of our existing farmland for the long term

while protecting biodiversity, conserving water

and reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

So what will the future farms look like?

This drone is part of a fleet that monitors the crops below.

The farm may look haphazard

but is a delicately engineered use of the land

that intertwines crops and livestock with wild habitats.

Conventional farming methods cleared large swathes of land

and planted them with a single crop,

eradicating wildlife

and emitting huge amounts of greenhouse gases in the process.

This approach aims to correct that damage.

Meanwhile, moving among the crops,

teams of field robots apply fertilizer in targeted doses.

Inside the soil,

hundreds of sensors gather data on nutrients and water levels.

This information reduces unnecessary water use

and tells farmers where they should apply more and less fertilizer

instead of causing pollution by showering it across the whole farm.

But the farms of the future won't be all sensors and robots.

These technologies are designed to help us produce food

in a way that works with the environment

rather than against it,

taking into account the nuances of local ecosystems.

Lower-cost agricultural practices can also serve those same goals

and are much more accessible to many farmers.

In fact, many such practices are already in use today

and stand to have an increasingly large impact

as more farmers adopt them.

In Costa Rica,

farmers have intertwined farmland with tropical habitat so successfully

that they have significantly contributed to doubling the country's forest cover.

This provides food and habitat for wildlife

as well as natural pollination and pest control

from the birds and insects these farms attract,

producing food while restoring the planet.

In the United States,

ranchers are raising cattle on grasslands composed of native species,

generating a valuable protein source

using production methods that store carbon and protect biodiversity.

In Bangladesh, Cambodia and Nepal,

new approaches to rice production

may dramatically decrease greenhouse gas emissions in the future.

Rice is a staple food for three billion people

and the main source of livelihood for millions of households.

More than 90 percent of rice is grown in flooded paddies,

which use a lot of water

and release 11 percent of annual methane emissions,

which accounts for one to two percent

of total annual greenhouse gas emissions globally.

By experimenting with new strains of rice,

irrigating less

and adopting less labor-intensive ways of planting seeds,

farmers in these countries

have already increased their incomes and crop yields

while cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions.

In Zambia,

numerous organizations are investing in locally specific methods

to improve crop production, reduce forest loss

and improve livelihoods for local farmers.

These efforts are projected to increase crop yield

by almost a quarter over the next few decades.

If combined with methods to combat deforestation in the region,

they could move the country

toward a resilient, climate-focused agricultural sector.

And in India,

where up to 40 percent of post-harvest food is lost or wasted

due to poor infrastructure,

farmers have already started to implement solar-powered cold storage capsules

that help thousands of rural farmers preserve their produce

and become a viable part of the supply chain.

It will take all of these methods,

from the most high-tech to the lowest-cost,

to revolutionize farming.

High-tech interventions stand to amplify

climate- and conservation-oriented approaches to farming,

and large producers will need to invest in implementing these technologies.

Meanwhile, we'll have to expand access to the lower-cost methods

for smaller-scale farmers.

This vision of future farming will also require a global shift

toward more plant-based diets

and huge reductions in food loss and waste,

both of which will reduce pressure on the land

and allow farmers to do more with what they have available.

If we optimize food production, both on land and sea,

we can feed humanity

within the environmental limits of the earth,

but there's a very small margin of error,

and it will take unprecedented global cooperation

and coordination of the agricultural lands we have today.