Vertical Farming

The other processes inside:

LED bulbs save energy and can be tuned to the specific wavelengths favored by each species (only red for lettuce, for example).

Robotic arms equipped with mechanical noses “sniff” plants and harvest them based on the presence of specific alcohols, a more precise judge of ripeness than color.

Raising cattle is inefficient—only 3 percent of the energy used to raise a cow ends up as protein on your plate. Instead, scientists will cultivate slabs of meat in the lab from chicken, pig or cow stem cells raised on a diet of water, glucose and natural proteins. To approximate the texture of meat, they will “exercise” the muscle with electrical pulses. The fatty texture of a porterhouse is too complex to replicate, but sausage and chicken nuggets should be routine in a decade.

Note: images by Graham Murdoch, overall story courtesy of Popular Science periodical.