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Abu Dhabi / WAM
His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, attended on Tuesday a lecture on the fourth agricultural revolution, delivered by Dr Caleb Harper, Director of the Open Agricultural Initiative at MIT Media Lab.
In a lecture titled “Eating Digital: The Fourth Agricultural Revolution”, Dr. Harper spoke about his experience as the Director of the Open Agricultural Initiative where he and his team created an agricultural lab that aims at developing a highly-controlled, digital-based method for agricultural production by making use of data gleaned from plants and from other sources.
“Our world is controlled and described by data more than ever,” Dr. Harper said, adding that the food industry should benefit from this information revolution. He said new approaches to agriculture will help produce good-tasting and highly-nutritious agricultural products.
Dr. Harper spoke about one of the tools developed in the MIT Media Lab. “The biometer is a device that can tell what the contents of a certain plant are, including nutrients and chemicals, which could be of particular help for checking the authenticity of organic foods,” he continued.
After sequencing plants at the Lab, findings indicated that a single plant contained 3.5 million data bits. The Director of the Open Agricultural Initiative noted that the research team used this data by connecting it with data gleaned from thousands of weather centres, with the resulting data helping farmers figure out the best climate for each plant.
Dr. Harper leads a group of engineers, architects and scientists in the exploration and development of the future food systems, where they are developing an open-source agricultural hardware, software and data common in order to create an agile and transparent and collaborative food system.
The Ramadan series of lectures is part of His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed’s efforts to spread the spirit of knowledge and learning in the United Arab Emirates, by inviting renowned scholars, experts, officials and entrepreneurs to speak at his Majlis at Al Bateen Palace in Abu Dhabi. The lectures are attended by senior government
officials, diplomats, and business leaders.