Italian confectionery group Ferrero, the maker of Nutella, has a hazelnut problem: Production has declined significantly over the past 10 years. Roughly 70% of hazelnuts are grown on Turkey’s Black Sea coast, where hail storms and late frosts have devastated crops. In 2016, Ferrero joined the MIT Media Lab’s Open Agriculture Initiative, or OpenAg, which studies how to grow food in a world of rising temperatures, wildfires, droughts, war and occasional nuclear meltdowns. For Ferrero, OpenAg created what it calls a hazelnut...
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab's Open Agriculture Initiative, or OpenAg, is using artificial intelligence (AI) for indoor farming. Italian confectioner and Nutella maker Ferrero is working with OpenAg to create a "hazelnut computer", an indoor farm where 16 trees are maturing in an environment where all variables such as light, temperature and humidity are controlled by AI. Once OpenAg deduces the ideal conditions for growing hazelnuts, Ferrero will use the data to search for new places to farm around the world. Caleb Harper, director of OpenAg, described the process as "climate prospecting".