Erin Baumgartner : Big data, small farms and a tale of two tomatoes

 Erin Baumgartner·TEDxNatick

Big data, small farms and a tale of two tomatoes

Summary

Her data and two tomatoes’ stories were interesting. The waste-management system researched about where your trash goes when you throw something away by installing small sensors into pieces of trash and throwing them into the waste system. Surprisingly, it was moving through the city, across the state, and across the country... it’s trash!! It means highly inefficient!!

Our food has the same system as that. In the distant farm, for example, tomatoes are created, when those are still green and hard, it’s picked, it’s gassed to turn red, and they travel at least 1,600 miles to get to your house.

Thus coming from a distant farm means that it’s high cost and it wouldn’t be delicious, though, companies can get benefits. Even if there are wastes, they can get it. Agricultural information and technology can carry a lot of products to many places where tomatoes couldn’t grow, though, in your area, small farms must grow high quality and tasty tomatoes.

The important things are quality, taste, no waste, and whether all people who work in small farms and customers can be satisfied.

The speaker insists on eating local food is an evolutionary act.