Farming and using the land
Fields of the Future
Our morning coffee and bread rolls, the cotton for our clothes, the wood in our furniture – without agriculture, our everyday lives are inconceivable. It feeds us and provides us with important raw materials. It shapes landscapes and societies alike. Yet we often take it for granted. At the same time, agriculture is criticised for contributing to climate change, for damaging ecosystems and for threatening biodiversity. All the while, agriculture itself is strongly affected by these developments. A vicious circle.
We’re facing major challenges: how can we provide healthy nutrition for all humans on earth without harming nature? How can we secure the livelihoods of farmers? Policy-makers can promote fair land use and support small farms. Farmers can protect their soil and make their fields more resistant to extreme weather conditions. Researchers have long been investigating new cultivation methods and developing smart technologies. And what can consumers do? We can choose our products more sustainably, for instance. Futurium’s new focus deals with the question of how we’ll be farming and using the land in the future. In the exhibition, in the Lab and at events, you can discover a wide range of approaches – from the use of AI and indoor farming to methods such as agroforestry. Let’s find out together how we can farm our fields of the future successfully!
Superland – A future-field installation
A garden in the middle of grey concrete: wooden beams growing together criss-cross to make trellises that are overgrown with greenery to form a cooling canopy of leaves. The plants, sprouting and blooming, will be arranged on five levels. Our installation “Superland” by Parzelle X and artist Benjamin Frick will bring the thematic focus “Fields of the Future” to Futurium in a very idiosyncratic way. Whether food security, climate change or biodiversity loss – agriculture is facing major challenges. The installation will present building blocks for solutions, including new and very old seeds, a moor and a forest garden. And it aims to appeal to all the senses – with the green of the plants, the buzzing of the insects, and the smell of the soil and the flowers. Even life underground will be made experienceable by acoustically amplifying the invisible processes in the soil and making them tangible as vibrations. “Superland” is envisioned as a living system between art and science that grows and constantly changes – despite all the adversities of everyday life.
Discover Berlin! Out and about with Futurium
“Futurium has left the building” is the motto for this summer: as part of our event series in June and July 2025, you can find Futurium at four special locations in Berlin. Here you can look into the various facets of our new thematic focus “Future Fields. Farming and Using the Land” from an urban perspective. The events will be organised with committed locals and present concrete approaches to shaping the future of our city. Each event will be dedicated to a new topic. Exchange everyday expertise, gain insights into research findings, try out new techniques and engage in unusual conversations!
Here you can find more information.
In the exhibition
More than 10,000 years ago, humankind took up agriculture and animal husbandry. Since then, human life – like the face of the earth itself – has been changing at increasingly dramatic speed... In the exhibition, you can find out the challenges facing us today and in the future in all areas related to “modern agriculture” – and what sort of solutions are already being worked on.
A game to introduce you to community-supported agriculture
Many people want to eat regional produce and know more about where their food comes from. At the same time, the number of small farms going to the wall is on the rise. To save more farms, holistic solutions are needed from policymakers and business players. One approach that has been tried and tested on a small scale is community-supported agriculture (CSA), whereby consumers become “members” of a farm. Our game to introduce you to this concept will take you through a harvest year and demonstrate how CSA works, what decisions have to be made and what challenges need to be overcome. Play in teams of three and decide together!
Indoor farming – the city as farm
Researchers are testing how to grow important basic foods indoors all over the world. For example, by using extremely fast-growing club wheat that was actually developed for space travel. The vision is to create a high-rise building in which the plants grow on top of each other in a hundred layers. Vegetables and herbs can also grow in old factory buildings or empty offices – temporarily, at least, because space in major cities is becoming increasingly scarce in many places. “Indoor farms” are also struggling with high energy prices. Where could they be built permanently in the future? And how could cities, in the long term, cover part of their needs themselves?
Agrivoltaics
Should we use a plot of land to grow food or to generate energy? There’s little room for both. What would be even better would be to use space for both purposes at the same time. This works if solar cells aren’t placed directly on fields, but high above them. Or if they’re installed on lakes. Solar power systems are more efficient if they’re cooled by water, while the panels protect the lakes from evaporation. Generating energy, promoting biodiversity and strengthening agriculture: the Spitalhöfe Solar Park in Villingen-Schwenningen shows how it’s done.
Half Earth
Many areas have already been designated as nature conservation areas. However, on this globe you can see that areas providing a habitat to a particularly large number of rare species are not yet protected. So, what can food cultivation that’s compatible with the necessary nature conservation actually look like? The “Half Earth” globe shows you various approaches to preserving sufficient habitat for rare species in the future.
Visit the new “Future Fields” exhibits in our permanent exhibition.
Open Lab Nights revolving around “Future Fields”
In the Lab, you can get creative every Thursday. Get to know methods such as design thinking and future storytelling, try out 3D printers and laser cutters and take a look behind the scenes of the lab projects. We have something new in store for you every week, including, of course, on our focus on agriculture!