Creating Social Value Blog / Food

Future Food: Urban Ag + Ag Tech

Next Wednesday, Food Sol will host a panel discussion on urban agriculture and agricultural technology. It would take some time to list all the reasons why this is important. Suffice it to say that agricultural innovation, under which both topics lie, influences technology, healthcare, construction and infrastructure, city planning and policy, renewables and sustainability, industrial engineering, finance and food retail—not to mention most, if not all, of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

But first let’s define our terms…

By urban agriculture, we mean the growing, processing and distributing food within and around cities. Applications include vertical farming, rooftop growing, farm-in-a-factory, farm-in-a-box, community, victory, and school gardens and various forms of farming at home.

By agriculture technology, we mean farming approaches and operations that leverage advancements such as sensors, devices, robots, and data to increase crop yields and/or other process efficiencies. Applications include precision agriculture, crop data, farm drones, seed genetics and interventions into the plant microbiome.

Bottom line: How we will feed a growing population with diminishing resources amid climate change is arguably the most vital question of our time. This panel is important to everyone who eats now and who plans to eat in the future.

In typical Food Sol fashion, this event is free and open to the public, no registration required, and discussion will be largely audience driven.  Full details, including confirmed speakers, are here.

See you next week.