Next-Gen Technologies Key to Future of Traditional and Urban Agriculture
“It has been the dream of an urban farmer to continually, at all times, engineer optimal growth conditions for plants with precise inputs and tightly controlled variables.”
Technology Networks
Feb 11, 2021
Excerpt:
“The SMART DiSTAP interdisciplinary team facilitated the work for this paper and we have both experts in engineering new agriculture technologies and potential end-users of these technologies involved in the evaluation process,” said Professor Michael Strano, the paper’s co-corresponding author, DiSTAP co-lead Principal Investigator, and Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT. “It has been the dream of an urban farmer to continually, at all times, engineer optimal growth conditions for plants with precise inputs and tightly controlled variables. These tools open the possibility of real-time feedback control schemes that will accelerate and improve plant growth, yield, nutrition, and culinary properties by providing optimal growth conditions for plants in the future of urban farming.”
“To facilitate widespread adoption of these technologies in agriculture, we have to validate their economic potential and reliability, ensuring that they remain cost-efficient and more effective than existing approaches,” the paper’s co-corresponding author, DiSTAP co-lead Principal Investigator, and Deputy Chairman of TLL Professor Chua Nam Hai explained. “Plant nanosensors and Raman spectroscopy would allow farmers to adjust fertiliser and water usage, based on internal responses within the plant, to optimise growth, driving cost efficiencies in resource utilisation. Optimal harvesting conditions may also translate into higher revenue from increased product quality that customers are willing to pay a premium for.”
