today my family and i are hitting the
road in search of a farm a vertical farm
is a farm just like it sounds that is
stacked but since i’m leading this
family adventure it’s not just gonna be
your average farm
we are on the hunt to find the next
generation of farmers
see i grew up surrounded by giant farms
in the midwest and while industrial
farming has helped feed the world it
often requires chemicals antibiotics and
takes a toll on the planet i’m ginger z
chief meteorologist at abc news my
family and i are hitting the road to
help rebuild and get a first-hand look
at what it takes to save the planet so
today we traveled to echo farm in fort
myers florida to see how it can be done
right
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so the world is as diverse as it comes
and echo tries to demonstrate difficult
growing conditions around the world and
ways to overcome those we’re all about
use what you have to make what you need
focusing on underutilized fruits and
vegetables with shorter shelf lives so
we have five plants that have more iron
than spinach ben likes to be regular on
a road trip so anything you can do to
fiber them up they are truly zero waste
we shear the sheep to make yarn for
sweaters but look it’s us but in sheep
version
super efficient feed the ducks
we could have the duck cage here
but then they’d get the
manure falling down under the cage
having to wash it out clean it out if we
put it here the manure fertilizes the
phytoplankton and the algae the fish
grow faster and the farmers have three
protein sources ducks duck eggs and the
fish and they don’t use any chemicals
because they have these guys so if
you’re replenishing a bed you would mix
like manure and compost and then some
soil and that gives you the mixture that
you’d need without chemical fertilizer
he ate the whole thing he’s like very
strong
it’s a return to the way things grow
best pretty much everything you see is
either edible or useful so this is a
fruit you may not have heard of before
black sapote
also known as the chocolate pudding
fruit
yum
you’re just gonna shove my face aren’t
you please don’t we didn’t do cake at
our wedding so take it
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[Laughter]
creamy
surprising
creamy
surprising
isn’t that fun
it tastes like banana ice cream we need
to show people that real food comes from
real places and real people can grow it
while echo farm has flourished in
florida’s sun and soil we also wanted to
check out a farm that requires neither
dirt nor sunlight but this farm does
demand head to toe ppe here in the net
look at you cute
you’re about to enter the largest
vertical farm in the world
wow
so that’s this big the biggest
vertical farm in the world
this is aerofarms in newark new jersey
it’s an indoor vertical spectacle and
almost looks like a city with those
endless shelves stacked to the ceiling
like skyscrapers made of salad so here
you want to see some of the roots so if
you look up here you see those little
things
cool those are all going to be harvested
as plants the plants get pretty big so
this is in like probably 12 days that’s
usually 40 days
the light all led
the water a top-secret irrigation system
that also pumps nutrients directly to
the roots so we can use about 95 percent
less water and most people over irrigate
so we are giving the plant really what
it wants but is this the future of
farming is this the way it’s going to be
you think because it’s so sustainable
when you think of how many leds light
emitting diodes are in your home now
versus five years ago that cost
structure is going down the efficiency
is going up and as leds become more and
more prolific then the number of amount
of crops that we could grow becomes more
and more we saw the world’s largest
vertical farm ginger’s moving in she’s
not coming home with us she’s staying on
aisle four next to the kale ready one
one two two three vertical farms i
didn’t get anybody on that i had no
contact and after all the farming it was
finally time for a taste test
oh that one’s got the spice to it huh
got a little kick
yummy since we left newark i pretty much
polished off
an entire wasabi greens
do you love me
huh
you love me oh yeah
the best tasting food is when you get it
straight out of the ground or as close
to you as you possibly can john and
molly chester are farmers at the
forefront of this small farm movement a
few years ago they left their city life
in la to start the biggest little farm
in california
they’re sharing more of their
sustainable farming practices in a
disney plus special it’s the biggest
little farm the return
we had to create the highest level of
biodiversity possible
that’s exactly how my wife molly and i
rebuilt this whole farm over the last
decade
when you say the word biodiverse farm or
biodiversity do you feel like when you
made the duck societally people were
kind of like
and now they’re getting it more
biodiversity all the different organisms
that live in the soil and that live on
our planet are essentially
the immune system of the planet and the
farm right so it makes more sense to
people i think because they can kind of
visualize that there are these
mutualistic relationships these
relationships that benefit one another
and that’s what biodiversity is really
based on is this idea of mutualism now
yours is the biggest little farm but
when we talk about global agriculture is
this just the start the the way that
agriculture
can really work and has worked for years
is more like a patchwork quilt like
there’s no one farm that’s going to
solve
all the planets
issues or there’s no one farming
methodology that’s what’s so beautiful
about diversity it actually takes lots
of little kind of micro sort of
ecosystems coming together that create
the biosphere that is balanced on our
planet what is one thing that somebody
watching this could take to be a part of
the healing of the planet it would be
amazing if we all started composting and
encouraged you know school settings
institutional settings to
require composting and do that in your
home in fact even what you’re doing in
rewilding your front yard could have a
far more significant impact to the
rediversifying and the healing of
biodiversity on our planet then all the
farms combined well we already compost
but this trip has inspired me to go one
step further do you want to have a goat
for home
yeah let’s tell daddy let’s get a goat
yep i’ll move
next time the adventure continues as our
family discovers new ways to help
restore the health of our oceans
click on the links below to watch more
episodes of branching out
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