Future of Food: How Digital Technology Will Change the Way We Feed the Planet

By the middle of this century, we will have nine billion mouths to feed and nobody who wants to be a farmer. Projections suggest we might not have enough water to drink, let alone to grow crops, within a decade. From climate change to pollution to aging farmers, our global food system is in crisis, and as the planet heats up, it will only get worse.

While the problem is clear, the solutions have been scarce. Now, thanks to Caleb Harper and his vast indoor farm in MIT's famed Media Lab, a revolution in agriculture is taking place. Taking the toil from the field to the lab, he has been able to monitor the variables that affect a plant's health - water, light, CO2, temperature. And using machine learning to analyse the vast amount of data being collected, he and his team calculated how to grow the healthiest, tastiest, fastest-growing and most sustainable produce in history. Soon he was working with NASA to learn how to grow crops on Mars, with Syrian refugees to grow food in camps that reminded them of home and with Stella McCartney to develop more sustainable cotton for denim.

In this visionary memoir filled with cutting-edge ideas, Caleb retraces his own surprising journey, and shows how we can feed a growing population without destroying the planet.