There's an 11-year-old boy called Birke Baehr who appears in TED talk. His short presentation is on what is wrong with our food system. I am full of admiration not only because of his tender age but also because of his understanding of a topic about which most of the adults on this planet still have limited knowledge let alone concern. But here is little Birke, the product of home schooling, showing a genuine interest about the food that he eats, the system that the food is produced in and moreover, vows to do something about it.

Armed with plenty of research done on the Internet and first hand visits to the local farms, little Birke, who shows a maturity and confidence beyond his age, wants to spread the message to everyone that the current mass produced food that we consume is unnatural, unhealthy and bad for the planet. It is far better to purchase our foods fresh from the local farmers who grow them without pesticide and who keep their cattle happy and healthy.

Buying organic food from the local farmer's market is not more expensive, Birke argues. He would rather give his money to his friend the farmer than to the hospital, which is where you would end up if you eat processed and genetically modified food and food that has travelled from far away. For this, Birke received a big applause from his audience. A bigger applause came when he claimed that whereas once, when he was younger he wanted to be a football player, but now, he wants to be an organic farmer.

Once when he was much smaller, he too would be lured by adverts that sell brightly packaged foods and sparkling, sugar-laden cereals complete with colourful toys. But he now knows those kind of foods are bad for the body, the environment and ultimately the entire planet. He is proud to mention that he has managed to influence his six-year old cousin who now prefers to eat organic cereal rather than the brightly coloured ones found on the supermarket shelf.

Birke's aim is to make a difference on this planet and to influence people, one kid at a time: To eat fresh food grown locally and in ways that are not detrimental to the environment and to realise that the food system that we take for granted is actually wrong.

In a way it is not surprising that a child like Birke could show such insight and understanding of the world he lives in and is interested in finding solutions to the problems. First of all, children are naturally curious. They ask a lot of questions and they can absorb a lot of knowledge. Given the right encouragement and exposure, children can come up with insight and solutions that adults, stuck in the grind of daily life, would probably have no time to spend on unless they are specialists or experts in a particular field.

Reduce their time on the Internet to play games but to steer them to focus on things that directly affect their lives and are of interest to their natural and inquisitive nature, today's children are probably better researchers and learners than PhD students a decade ago.

Secondly, children of today are different to the adults of yesterday who were brought up with the notion of the virtue of material wealth, the wonder of progress and abundance as well as the inevitability of globalisation. Today's children are raised in awareness about problems brought about by Climate Change, environmental destructions, pollution, waste brought on by mass production, depleted resources, limited energy and lifestyle diseases.

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