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How will we feed our future world, amid climate change, a growing population and people consuming more or less sustainable food? The answer may not lie in increasing resources – land, water and workers – but rather in improving production efficiency to create more sustainable crop agriculture. The key question: how can we increase the amount of food we produce while using the same or fewer resources?
The Sustainable Development Roadmap of an Unexpected Superpower:
When it comes to sustainably scaling up agricultural production, one small country has a very big impact. Backed by a national commitment to produce twice as much food with half the resources, the Netherlands has become the world's second largest fresh produce exporter. The close collaboration between government, scientific organizations and the food industry has led to impressive innovation and efficiency that is unmatched anywhere else in the world.
On a normal tomato farm in open ground you could expect a yield of 4 kilograms per square meter. In a high-tech greenhouse in the Netherlands, that number rises to 80 kilograms of yield per square meter, with 4x less water. That's a 20x improvement in output! And it's not just tomatoes: the Dutch are number 1 in the world when it comes to the production of chili peppers, green peppers and cucumbers (measured by yield per square kilometer). With conservation and sustainable food being two of the most important global issues, can other countries copy their approach to help save the planet?
Sustainable agricultural practices powered by AI
What drives sustainability? The technology behind these greenhouses provides an extreme level of control over water, light, temperature and CO2, all of which are finely tuned and optimized. Constant testing of countless variables is what drives these facilities and could be the future of our planet's sustainable food systems. Tests can be as simple as comparing different shades of LEDs to increase tolerance to pests, or as sophisticated as a moth-killing drone.
Moreover, environmentally friendly technology is only getting better. Efficient farming is becoming increasingly automated, using artificial intelligence to find the optimal conditions. By learning the behavior of plants, climate computers can adapt conditions much better than a human.
Scaling up efficient agriculture: it's all about sharing knowledge
The Netherlands does not only think about the Netherlands. In addition to using technology efficiently, these innovators are exploring how to use their findings on a larger scale. For example, their greenhouses mimic climates around the world to optimize growth outside the country. For example, as they learn what is optimal in Columbia, they can transfer that knowledge and help build sustainable food systems around the world. This level of 'big picture' thinking could be a game changer as we tackle global warming and climate change – one of society's biggest challenges in the coming years.
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