The High-Tech Future of Farming

Over the next 30 years, most Americans will move to cities. Farmers make up a tiny, aging fraction of the U.S. population, and the production of good food in a future urban society will require creativity. Caleb Harper, the lead researcher at MIT’s OpenAg project, and his team are developing open-source hard and software platforms for users to experiment with climates and grow fresh food. In simpler terms, Harper’s OpenAg Food Computers are smart mini-greenhouses for individuals to use in urban settings in the era of global warming. “When we talk about climate change it's often in a very disempowering tone,” Harper says in this interview filmed at the 2016 Aspen Ideas Festival. “We want to create climate democracy at the scale of the person in the production of food.”