Thinking Out-of-the-Box in Sustainable Food Production

Traditional agriculture and farming techniques have not been able to keep up with growing consumer demand for healthy food nationally and globally. Driven by

• Population growth and urbanization decreasing available arable land dedicated to agriculture,
• Rising supply chain and energy costs,
• Growing environmental concern about use of pesticides for crop production,
• Insufficient water availability for crop production,
• Limited growing seasons based on the traditional agriculture one-cycle production process,
• Harsh and severe weather,
• Political turmoil affecting agricultural trade,
• Market fluctuations in agriculture prices and costs, and 
• Market shocks from COVID-19

National and global demand for food, specifically healthy sustainably produced food will outpace supply. Short of innovation and technological advances to offset demand, the impact of increasing demand for healthy food places significant pressure on the Agricultural Industry to find viable solutions.

Securing sufficient supply of quality, sustainably produced food is just one side of the coin—U.S. agriculture has the responsibility to meet growing demand by using natural resources more efficiently by thinking out-of-the-box. There have been advances in seed and fertilization technology, advances in crop production and research into crop yields.

However, food produced outdoors is susceptible to harsh and severe weather, declining available arable land, opposition to the use and application of pesticides for crop production, and COVID restricting the available labor supply to name just a few constraints. The combined effect thwarts food production and hence supply, which have been aged-old farming constraints hampering even the most productive traditional agriculture farming enterprises.

Out-of-the box thinking about how to resolve this problem led to development of AGRONOMICS: The Integration of Solar Micro-Grid Smart Technology with Indoor Vertical Farming, Proximate Produce Processing and Cold Storage Warehousing. AGRONOMICS addresses escalating demand for sustainable and healthy food supply while meeting 9 of the United Nations Sustainable Goals using solar micro-grid smart energy technology reducing the carbon footprint creating a New Farming Paradigm to Deliver Farm Sustainability.

This form of sustainable food production will not replace traditional agriculture; it is not our intention. However, it will help to supplement traditional agriculture to help meet escalating demand for healthy sustainably produced food, utilizing renewable energy that leaves little to no carbon footprint. AGRONOMICS is the result of out-of-the-box thinking to help resolve food insecurity in the United States.