An open source tool, the Food Computer, is being developed at MIT that can be used to create, save, and share climates for growing crops, maximized for nutrition, yield and taste, regardless of location or season.
The Video Screening Room
MIT Mechanical engineer Camille Richman explains in this TEDx talk how open source “climate recipes” can democratize food production via her work with the “open phenome project.”
Further information can be found at MIT’s Open Agriculture website. Participation by the public is invited, including students in classrooms. I’m wondering…with more than 50 percent of students in the United States receiving free or reduced lunches, does it make sense to grow healthy fruits and vegetables right within the school building, thereby also reducing the carbon footprint needed for transporting fresh foods across country? That’s a thought worth chewing on.
For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.
Very encouraging! But how far are they off from a pizza computer?
This is some of the coolest news I’ve heard in a while. My ultimate life goal is to complete the task of fully automating food production, and this is definitely a step in the right direction. Someday, food will have zero human cost for production and delivery, and the energy to run the machines will be harvested automatically, and we’ll look back and marvel at the fact that the stuff of life used to be withheld from people with insufficient money. Great work!
Caleb Harper started this, here is his talk:
https://www.ted.com/talks/caleb_harper_this_computer_will_grow_your_food_in_the_future
He is part of the team, not sure where Camille Richman fits in yet. The website says “Camille Richwoman” on the bottom of the list on the right of this page:
http://openag.media.mit.edu/team/