app Harvest is built on this concept that everybody deserves access to healthy fruits and vegetables and we have to figure out how to grow more food with less resources for us it's how do we use modern technology you know but put nature first the global implications of doing high-tech indoor Farms is that.
You can grow a lot more food with a lot fewer resources and much less impact on the environment and that's critical for the future when you look at the numbers on what's happening with water shortages the depletion of soil and climate severe weather events that are wiping out crops it is now it's not the future we need to be doing this now.
right now we've set out to not only open this Berea facility which will be one of the largest leafy green facilities in the U.S but build a network of high-tech Farms here in central Appalachia that cross leafy greens strawberries tomatoes and other Vine crops we started farming thousands of years.
Ago and technology has advanced from the wheel to the Tractor to now ai and Robotics and software and sensors combining that into how we grow food in align with the planet better that is our mission the problems happening in the western part of the U.S right now are dire we have to use our water in a more precious.
Way to me that problem of how do we solve our water crisis in the U.S we do it with Farms like this This indoor Farm you can see has some unique features we use 90 less water than traditional farms and the reason is our indoor Farm is a closed system we capture rain water on our roof we send it through gullies and pipes into a.
Retention Pond and then we make sure using sensors that the plants only get what they actually need so our indoor farms and this type of contactless growing benefits both food safety and food waste we don't have concerns about E coli we've heard about E coli outbreaks this summer and indoor Farms can be very efficient because we can.
Grow 24 7. we have a very large roof with glass panels which means we use a lot of passive solar but we also use lighting overnight to continue to help the plants grow LED lighting has been a huge Innovation that's really enabled this sector to be much more energy efficient but I think the energy to support this type of farming is where.
We're going to see tremendous Innovation over the next five years so I think that's coming and that's really exciting to me farming is not what you think of when you think of your grandma or Grandpa riding a tractor around and we respect that and we appreciate the tradition of farming but farming is smartphones and tablets to operate.
Software and sensors and use technology to grow food and we have to now plant that seed with young people to think of careers and Futures inside of a pathway of farming that didn't exist 20 years ago my name is Jacob ball I'm the agriculture teacher at Carter G Woodson Academy Carter G Woodson Academy is an.
All-male college preparatory program we teach you the lens of African American history and culture and also incorporate Hispanic history and culture so the container farm that we're fortunate to have here is a shipping container that has been retrofitted as a hydroponic Farm we are one of 12 schools in the Eastern.
Kentucky Region that are fortunate to be partnering with AB Harvest as more and more schools come on board we're actually building a network of teachers that are collaborating together with other students across the region we've kind of learned the best way to get our nutrient levels pH water light temperature humidity we control all.
Those factors for the best best growing environment basically every two weeks we're harvesting and then it's going to local community members through a CSA program or to our local cafeteria I'm really proud of myself I'm really proud of this program hopefully in the future I'll be able to show my kids just how much we've been able to accomplish and.
Just four years agriculture is a way that students can get involved in a career get involved in an industry that plays such an important role in the sustainability of our planet the sustainability of our societies I think the more we can get these systems in place and continuously improve them which there's so much potential for in.
The future and so many opportunities to bring in more Innovation more high-tech strategies it's just going to benefit us as a region and as a country to be self-sufficient in terms of our food innovate or die you know we're on this finite plane at this rock that's flying around the sun called planet Earth and it's burning.
We can either use technology and innovate or we can see things crumble around us so this is a mission it's a career and what can we do to use private sector tools use technology build stuff and try to give us a fighting chance to hand a better future to that next generation and I truly believe app Harvest is a part of that.
thank you foreign
