The High-Tech Vertical Farmer

(electronic music) It might seem like we're inside a spaceship, but this is actually a farm. (buzz) The crops here are mainly grown by machines with the help of a few humans, like this woman. Her life offers an early glimpse into a new type of agriculture. It's a promising twist on an old career path, but only if robots don't replace it entirely. (upbeat music) As

tech

nology replaces old jobs, it also creates new ones. I'm Aki Ito and I'm here to show you the jobs of the future. (upbeat music) My name is Katie Morich and I am a

vertical

farmer

.

Katie works for a three-year-old startup called Bowery. (She intercom rings) Her farm is here, in this industrial park in New Jersey. How are you? It's the last place you'd expect to find any sign of life. We take extra precautions to make sure we don't bring any contaminants onto the farm, so we will wear hairnets and then this will cover all of your street clothes. Katie wears a clean uniform every day. Visitors like me are given a non-negotiable jumpsuit. Alright. Enter and you will see a cross between a factory and a laboratory. (glowing notes) Produce trays stack

vertical

ly to save space, and each tray receives just the right amount of light, water and nutrients at the optimal temperature and humidity.

It's an incredible level of precision, which is why Katie can grow faster with less water and no pesticides. (glowing notes) It's also what allows you to grow things that taste like nothing you've ever had before. What is this? This is the sorrel. Hmm. She tastes like candy apple. Oh! That's good, right? It's so bitter. I know. Most of this installation is automated. (e-notes) Data is collected by sensors and a computer controls the growing conditions of the crops. For the things the machines can't yet do, Katie and her fellow human

farmer

s fill in, and even those tasks are dictated by the software that runs this entire operation.

It lets me know what I need to do, what time I need to do it, and that's how I end my day. Have you ever rebelled against the computer's orders? Uh, every once in a while, if we try to do a little experiment of our own, we'll say, okay, is the system telling us the right things? Most of the time it is. All the time is fine. (laughs) After a full day on the farm, Katie likes to bring home samples for her husband, Jase, (blender whirring) and her cat, Burt. (blender stops) Salt, pepper? Maybe a little more...

Garlic? There are two dishes from Katie's farm on the menu. Basil, for pesto pasta. That's very good. And mixed vegetables for salad. I'm terrified, everyone is judging. Cheer up friends. Health. Health. (bottles clink) Katie fell in love with environmental science in college, but after graduating she struggled to find a full-time career in the field. Jase had to deal with me a lot (laughs), you know, coming home crying and trying to figure out if he was making the right decisions. And then, somehow, online, Bowery appeared. She told me about this job, like Bowery Farming, it's like an indoor vertical farm, and I was like, okay, this sounds like total nonsense.

So I took my work truck and said, "You know, let me go for a drive and see what this is all about." So I drove there, it doesn't look like there are any farms there. So I called her and said, "Listen, I know you're excited about this job, but it seems really iffy." But I thought I'd go and check it out for myself and I stopped and it was exactly like he described it, but I tried it. And so, in 2017, Katie joined Bowery. She became employee number nine. (Door closes) This is actually my first real, full-time job as a big girl. (unintelligible chatter) And it was a little intimidating at first, coming into this company with people who have their PhDs and I don't necessarily have that experience, so I was constantly doubting myself when I started at Bowery.

I wasn't worried about her at all, you know? She told us, "Can I do this?" And I told her that she had a little faith in herself. Katie grew up in a typical New Jersey suburb with two working parents. They have tried to avoid putting too much pressure on her only son. When we found out what she was doing and we realized that this is something that didn't exist when we were younger and I thought about my generation, you know, PCs came out when I started working and my parents probably would have said that it would be a Crazy if I went into the IT field at that time, but now look what happened.

So it's not a good idea for us to try to tell you what to do because it's a different world. (bleep) Bowery is backed by some of Silicon Valley's biggest investors. And with nearly $30 million in funding, the startup is expanding rapidly. And in May, after all that time she spent doubting herself, Katie was promoted to lead a team of her own farmers. The produce she grows supplies some nearby grocery stores, as well as this restaurant in Manhattan. (pan sizzling) It's less than 10 miles from the Bowery farm. What do you think? It's delicious! (Both laugh) You did that.

It's crazy to see things I grew on a plate. Alright, let me get some... But for Katie, it's not just about making premium vegetables for people who can afford them. I want people to have the purest products imaginable and I want them to be available to anyone. (electronic music) The world population is expected to reach 9.8 billion people in 2050. Two-thirds will live in cities. And we will need all kinds of new

tech

nologies to feed everyone sustainably. The key to making that food affordable is to continue producing more with fewer farmers. But no matter how

high

-tech all of this gets, Katie believes there will still be a place for her.

I just think there's something about the human mind that can't really be replicated. So I think we could still work closely with the technology, but I still think it's nice to have a human being there. Robots will also feel quite lonely if they have no one to talk to. (laughs) (bleep)