93. Cultivating Tomorrow: The Ag-Powered Future

Ecosystemic Futures

Cultivating Tomorrow: The Ag-Powered Future

🌱 How do you ensure humanity's survival when traditional agriculture faces supply chain disruptions and geographic constraints?

Most food security solutions focus on single variables, such as increasing yield, improving efficiency, or reducing costs. But as global populations urbanize and supply chains become more complex, we need ecosystemic solutions that work both on Earth and beyond.

Celina Roquet is pioneering this integrated approach.

From her work with French startup Towerfarm, she's demonstrating how vertical farming isn't just about growing plants in cities—it's about creating controlled ecosystems that can adapt to any environment. By manipulating over 60 growth parameters, including light spectra, nutrient cycles, and atmospheric conditions, these systems achieve water autonomy through closed-loop transpiration and produce pharmaceutical-grade compounds year-round.

→ Eliminating seasonal and geographic constraints on medicinal plant production

→ Creating hyper-local food systems that reduce supply chain vulnerabilities

→ Developing plant cultivation protocols for Mars colonization

→ Advancing from simple leafy greens to complete nutritional ecosystems

Traditional agriculture takes what nature provides. Controlled environment agriculture engineers what life requires. The implications extend far beyond food security. When pharmaceutical companies can't source active ingredients due to geopolitical disruptions or climate events, indoor cultivation of medicinal plants becomes critical infrastructure. When space missions require self-sustaining life support systems, plants provide oxygen, food, medicine, and psychological well-being.

📌 The broader insight: This isn't just about farming efficiency.

This represents a fundamental shift toward engineered ecosystems that can thrive in any environment, from urban rooftops to lunar colonies. The same principles that enable plant growth in Martian conditions are also solving food security issues in desert cities today. The key lesson from Celina Roquet, biotechnology expert and sci-fi author: "Be curious, explore and test and learn," because the future of human survival—whether on Earth or Mars—depends on our ability to take plants with us and adapt them to any environment.

📢 Constraint-driven innovation creates survival solutions. Ecosystemic thinking creates infinite adaptability.

What extreme environment in your industry is waiting for this kind of integrated biological approach?

#CultivatingTomorrow #VerticalFarming #SpaceAgriculture #FoodSecurity #Biotechnology #Innovation #Sustainability #EcosystemicFutures #PlantScience

Guest: Celina Roquet, Biotechnology Expert, Plant Institute of Biotechnology Graduate, Sci-Fi Author

Host: Marco Annunziata, Co-founder, Annunziata and Desai Advisors

Series Hosts:

Vikram Shyam, Lead Futurist, NASA Glenn Research Center

Dyan Finkhousen, Founder & CEO, Shoshin Works

Ecosystemic Futures is provided by NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration Convergent Aeronautics Solutions Project in collaboration with Shoshin Works.