The Ultimate Food Production System?

tl;dr; Industrial farming is unsustainable and threatens global food security. We need a food production system that’s water-efficient, organic, low-energy, affordable, accessible, resilient, adaptable, scalable, and non-polluting. iAVs meets all these criteria, offering exceptional yields with minimal resources and proven effectiveness in challenging environments.

If you could wave a magic wand and invent the most productive, resilient and sustainable food production system in the world what would it look like?

Before you do that, however, let’s think about why building the ‘ultimate’ food production might be a worthwhile goal?

The world’s population is predicted to rise to nine billion by 2050.  The United Nations has stated that, if we are to feed that number of people, food production will have to double.

So far, we’ve relied upon industrial farming to keep most of the world’s human inhabitants fed.  Indeed, the increased productivity provided by industrial farming (remember the Green Revolution?) actually facilitated the worldwide population expansion.  

That productivity, however, is an illusion.  The food that industrial farming produces is at the expense of dwindling resources like fossil fuels and chemical herbicides and pesticides.

Industrial farming is also the sole cause of – or a serious contributor to – the following:

• Climate change
• Desertification
• Soil Salinity
• Erosion
• Pollution
• Aquifer Depletion
• Drought
• Loss of Bio-diversity

As such, industrial farming is no longer sustainable and, In the face of our exploding population, these issues place the world’s ability to feed itself under extreme threat.  

The inescapable fact of human existence is that you eat – or you die…and it’s a problem from which no-one is immune.

For those of us who live privileged lifestyles in so-called developed countries, think about how quickly the food disappeared off the supermarket shelves the last time we experienced a power blackout – or some similar disruption to our otherwise cruisy lifestyle. 

Quite simply, we need to find ways of growing more food using less resources.

Any sustainable food production system must be:

• efficient in its use of water.  Many places in the world are already experiencing water stress and the situation is getting worse with each passing day.
• It must be organic inasmuch as it must avoid the use of synthetic herbicides, pesticides and fertilisers.
• It must be sparing in its use of energy and all other resources.
• It must be easy and inexpensive to build and to operate.
• It must be accessible to everyone who needs it.
• It must be resilient – able to quickly recover from setbacks.
• It must be possible in virtually any location – particularly in hot arid environments.
• It must be scalable – from the backyard to broadacre.
• It must be non-polluting – zero waste/discharge

iAVs is all of these things…

• iAVs is from 5,000 to 20,000 times more water efficient than US corn production.
• IAVs production is ‘organic’, all natural and generates zero waste of any type.
• iAVs is an intentional, symbiotic ecosystem for intensive food production,
• iAVs was explicitly developed for application in challenging (arid) environments.
• iAVs has been formally researched, documented, and published in peer-review.
• iAVs has been commercially proven (USDA) and open-source (free) since 1985.
• iAVs is adaptable to non-electrified, resource-poor, and climate challenged areas.
• iAVs uses water from 120 to 300 times yielding protein, carbohydrates & vitamins.
• iAVs generates at least 7 kilocalories / liter of water incorporated or transpired.
• iAVs is potentially transformative at family, village, regional and national scales.
• iAVs is a proven biotechnology with vast potential and current implementations.

iAVs is simultaneously simple, natural, reliable, intensive, resilient, adaptable, scalable, sustainable and exceptionally conserving of fresh water, energy and other resources.