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(electronic music)
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It might look like we're inside a spaceship,
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but this is actually a farm.
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(buzzing)
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The crops here are grown mostly by machines
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with the help of just a few humans, like this woman.
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Her life offers an early peek at a new kind of farming.
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It's a promising twist to an ancient career,
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but only if the robots don't replace her altogether.
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(upbeat music)
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As technology replaces old jobs,
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it's also creating new ones.
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I'm Aki Ito, and I'm here to
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show you the jobs of the future.
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(upbeat music)
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My name is Katie Morich, and I'm a vertical farmer.
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Katie works for a three year old
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startup called Bowery.
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(intercom buzzes)
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Its farm is here, in this industrial park in New Jersey.
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How are you?
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It's the last place you'd
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expect to find any sign of life.
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We take extra precaution to make sure we're
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not bringing any contaminants into the farm,
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so we're gonna wear hairnets, and then this
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is just gonna cover all your street clothes.
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Katie wears a clean uniform every day.
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Visitors like me are handed a non-negotiable jumpsuit.
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Alright.
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Step inside and you'll see a cross
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between a factory and a lab.
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(shimmering notes)
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Trays of produce are vertically stacked to save space,
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and each of them is given just the right amount of
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light, water and nutrients at the
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optimal temperature and humidity.
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It's an incredible level of precision,
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which is why Katie can grow more faster with
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less water and no pesticides.
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(shimmering notes)
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It's also what let's her grow things that
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taste like nothing you've ever had before.
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What's this?
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This is the sorrel.
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Mmm.
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That tastes like candy apple.
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Whoa! That's good, right?
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It's so sour. I know.
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The majority of this facility is automated.
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(electronic notes)
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The data is collected by sensors
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and a computer controls growing conditions for the crops.
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For the things that the machines can't do yet,
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Katie and her fellow human farmers fill in,
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and even those tasks are dictated by
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the software that runs this whole operation.
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It lets me know what I have to do,
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what time I should be doing it by,
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and that's how I get my day done.
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Do you ever, like, rebel against the computer's orders?
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Uh, once in a while, if we're trying to do
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a little experiment of our own, we'll be like,
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okay, is the system telling us the correct things?
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Most of the time it is.
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All the time it's right. (laughs)
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After a full day at the farm,
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Katie likes to bring home samples to her husband, Jase,
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(blender whirrs) and her cat, Burt.
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(blender stops)
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Salt, pepper?
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Maybe a little more... Garlic?
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On the menu are two items from Katie's farm.
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Basil, for pesto pasta.
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That's so good.
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And mixed greens for a salad.
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I'm terrified, everyone's judging.
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Cheers, guys.
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Cheers. Cheers.
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(bottles clink)
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Katie fell in love with environmental
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science in college, but after graduating
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she struggled to find a full-time career in the field.
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Jase had to deal with me a lot (laughs),
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you know, coming home to me crying
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and trying to figure out if I'm making the right decisions.
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And then, somehow, online, Bowery popped up.
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She told me about this job, like, Bowery Farming,
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it's like an indoor, vertical farm, and I was like,
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alright, this sounds like total BS.
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So, I took my work truck and I said, "You know,
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let me swing around and see what this is all about."
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So I drove up to it,
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doesn't look like there's a farm in there at all.
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So I called her and I was like, "Listen, I know you're
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psyched about this job, but it seems super sketchy."
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But I figured I'd go and check it out for myself
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and I pulled up and it was exactly as how he described,
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but I gave it a shot.
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And so in 2017, Katie joined Bowery.
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She became employee number nine.
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(door shuts)
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This is really my first real, full-time, big-girl job.
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(indistinct chatter)
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And it was a little intimidating at first,
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coming into this company with people that have like,
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their PHD and I don't necessarily have that background,
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so I constantly doubted myself when I
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first started at Bowery.
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I wasn't worried about her at all, you know.
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She said to us, "Can I do this?"
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And I used to tell her to have a little faith in herself.
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Katie grew up in a typical New Jersey suburb
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with two working parents.
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They've tried to stay away from putting too much pressure
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on their only child.
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When we heard about what she was doing and
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realized that this is something that didn't exist
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when we were younger and I thought back from my generation,
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you know, PC's came out when I started working
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and my parents probably would've said I was crazy
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if I went into an IT field at the time,
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but now look what happened.
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So, it's not a good idea for us to try to tell her
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what to do because it's a different world.
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(beeping)
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Bowery is backed by some of
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Silicon Valley's top investors.
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And with almost $30 million dollars of funding,
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the startup is expanding fast.
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And in May, after all that time she spent doubting herself,
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Katie got promoted to lead a team of her own farmers.
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The produce she grows supplies a few nearby grocery stores
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as well as this restaurant in Manhattan.
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(pan sizzles)
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It's less than 10 miles away from the Bowery farm.
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What do you think?
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It's delicious! (both laugh)
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You made that.
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It's like, crazy to see stuff I grew on a plate.
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Alright, let me get some of...
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But for Katie, it's not just about making
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premium vegetables for people who can afford them.
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I want people to have the purest produce imaginable,
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and I want that to be readily available to anybody.
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(electronic music)
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The world's population is set to reach
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9.8 billion people by 2050.
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Two-thirds will live in cities.
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And we're gonna need all kinds of new technology
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to sustainably feed everyone.
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The key to making that food affordable
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is to continue to make more with fewer farmers.
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But no matter how high-tech all this gets,
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Katie thinks there will still be a place for her.
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I just think there's something about the
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human mind that you can't really replicate.
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So I think we could still work closely with technology,
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but I still think it's nice to have a human there.
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It'll also be pretty lonely for the robots
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if they don't have anybody to talk to. (laughs)
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(beeping)