[....] And that’s exactly what we’re doing with the digital farming OpenAG Initiative at the MIT Media Lab. As I explained at the summit, my “Food Computer” is a controlled environment agriculture platform, in which robotic control systems and actuated climate, energy, and plant-sensing mechanisms create a precisely calibrated environment for growth. We use aeroponic technology, and with thirty sensing points per plant, we can trend data points over time and discover exactly what each plant wants. Unlike conventional agriculture, bent on dominating nature with a heavy hand, we’ve started a conversation with nature, a two-way street. It allows us to calibrate a plant’s phenome—the set of its observable traits—by listening carefully and then coding for optimal expression, for the juiciest strawberries and the sweetest basil.....Continue Reading

Top image: The Food Server at the MIT Media Lab. Photo by Caleb Harper.

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