In the present era of environmental consciousness prevails, people start to think twice what they should eat and what should not. When we are consuming a fresh fruit from the other side of the global village, our planet earth is eating carbon dioxide that we have left behind. Long distance transportation is too pricey on the environment that motivates modern environmentalist farmers to make a change. We should grow our food where we live, literally in the city. Urban farming flourishes in many cities all over the world, but how is it possible in Singapore and Hong Kong? These cities are notorious for crowdedness. Kannie meets the Singaporean Bjorn Law, who advocates ‘grow your own food’, not just a slogan but actually helps restaurants to grow their vegetables next door. When Kannie tours around the garden city, she realizes that decorative gardens of commercial buildings can simply turn into edible farms, without losing any beauty. Vertical farming in the heart of Singapore is technologically orientated, which attracts young university graduates to be hands-on the dirts. The farm uses minimal energy input to grow vegetables and breed fish at the same time. In Hong Kong, Kannie finds a farm inside an industrial building, a wise way to use the limited space in the city, as industry is on the edge of disappearing. Do we need to sacrifice our taste buds or the joy of eating exotic food to become an environmentalist? Caleb Harper, a researcher at MIT, USA will probably make it not necessary, because in the future, one can get an email tomato from faraway. He has a habit of talking to plants, in their language of pH value, mineral contents, and etc. With this knowledge and data, he has devised an open-source ‘food computer’. He envisions that in the future, every farmer and every home-grower will be able to grow a particular crop in a specific place of a preferred year. Mankind is approaching a world of zero carbon food.

4/5/2017 7:00 - 7:30pm TVB Pearl
5/5/2017 5:30 - 6:00pm RTHK31