This TED Talk features urban farm innovator Stuart Oda, recorded live at TED Salon, Rethink 2019.

So if you live on planet Earth and you're one of seven billion people that eats food every day, I need you to pay attention because over the next three decades, we will need to address one of the most critical global challenges of our generation.

And I'm not talking about climate change.

I'm talking about food and agriculture.

In 2050, our global population is projected to reach 9.8 billion,

with 68% of us living in urban city centers.

In order to feed this massive population, we will need to increase our agricultural output by 70% over current levels.

Just to put this number into perspective, we will need to grow more food in the next 35 to 40 years

than the previous 10,000 years combined. more food in the next 35 to 40 years than the previous

10,000 years combined. Put simply, not only is our global population becoming bigger, but it's

also getting denser, and we will need to grow significantly more food using significantly

less land and resources.

Complicating our current efforts to address these major demographic shifts

are the challenges facing the agricultural industry today.

Globally, one-third of all the food that we produce

is wasted, equating to 1.6 billion tons of food that spoiled on the way to the

market or expired in our refrigerators, or were simply thrown out by supermarkets and restaurants

at the end of the day. Every single year, up to 600 million people will get sick eating

contaminated food, highlighting the challenge that we have of maintaining global food safety.

And maybe unsurprisingly, the agricultural industry

is the single largest consumer of freshwater,

accounting for 70% of global usage.

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