The Future of Produce - Keeping it Kosher Clips

Are there any technological advances that  are coming down the pike that will either   help us check faster, easier, or make the  hashgacha less tedious and less expensive? Hopefully. That is the goal. Well, I'm going to  geek out with you now because I love this topic.   So I always find it ironic, I remember leaving,  having a prestigious degree, a mechanical   engineering degree, and I ended up becoming,  I don't know, like a bug rabbi, right? So now,   going to these farms where you just have  the perfect blend of mechanical engineering,   software engineering, and entomology,  and agriculture, it's fascinating.   I've been to facilities where literally  everything is automated. Where you can have   these automated moving racks. Where you can mimic  the sunrise and sunset. You can even do a lot of   fun triggers where you can remove certain things  to stress the plant to enhance a certain taste   or to focus on certain defense mechanisms  or nutrients. And all this is just totally   automated with no human intervention, and it's  pretty fascinating to look at in that aspect. There's this company in the Netherlands. They've  basically stuck a lot of research and development,   where after sticking electrodes into plants in a  greenhouse setting, and analyzing and deciphering   the signals of the plants, they're able to  decipher what the plants are saying. No joke. You   think of Shlomo HaMelech, right? He understood the  language of plants. There's like companies that   have put a lot of resources into this and they're  able to decipher when a plant says it's thirsty,   or when a plant says it's too hot, or when a  plant says, "oh, I'm lacking nitrogen," right?   And having that as a signal to trigger, "oh  well, I'm going to have the automated water   system now water the plant," or "I'm going  to have the humidity," so on and so forth. So I actually came across this company  because one of the signals they were able   to decipher is one that plants were able  to detect the presence of pests. So then,   they would trigger a defense response, and  they would communicate that to the other   plants. So they would try to taste a little  bit more bitter, or they would try to grow a   little bit more hairs to slow the infestation. So  that was a cool little discovery along the way. So, do you foresee a point where you  can just rely on the computer or the   system to tell you there's no bugs in a plant? No. I mean, as far as I know, no, not  at the moment. I do think regardless,   whatever system is in place, you're  going to need boots on the ground,   so to speak. This is actually a cool thing. I  know of a company that's working on artificial   intelligence with being able to scan produce and  using AI to actually check and determine if there   are bugs present or not. So, there's a lot of  behind-the-scenes stuff going on in terms of   the innovation aspect. Now, maybe a few  years from now, you're going to ask me,   "Our ancestors didn't have AI,  so how did they..." you know?