AUTHOR=Davies Fred T. , Garrett Banning 

TITLE=Technology for Sustainable Urban Food Ecosystems in the Developing World: Strengthening the Nexus of Food–Water–Energy–Nutrition

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems

VOLUME=Volume 2 - 2018

YEAR=2018

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sustainable-food-systems/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2018.00084

DOI=10.3389/fsufs.2018.00084

ISSN=2571-581X

ABSTRACT=Smart integration of technology can help create sustainable urban food ecosystems (UFEs) for the rapidly expanding urban population in the developing world. Technology, especially recent advances in digital-enabled devices based on internet connectivity, are essential for building UFEs at a time when food production is increasingly limited on a global scale by the availability of land, water and energy. By 2050, 2/3 of the world will be urban – and most of the net world population growth will occur in urban regions in the developing world. A food crisis is looming, with the developing world ill-prepared to sustainably feed itself. We identify 12 innovative technology platforms to advance the UFEs of the developing world: 1) connectivity - information delivery and digital technology platforms; 2) uberized services; 3) precision agriculture (GPS, IoT, AI); 4) CEA – controlled environment agriculture, including vertical farms;  5) blockchain for greater transparency, food safety, identification; 6) solar and wind power connected to microgrids; 7) high-quality, enhanced seeds for greater yield, nutrition, climate and pest resistance; 
8) advanced genetics, including gene editing, synthetic biology and cloud biology; 
9) biotechnology, including microbiome editing, soil biologicals, cultured meat, alternative proteins to meat and dairy; 10) nanotechnology and advanced materials; 11) 3-D printing/ additive manufacturing; and 12) integration of new tech to scale-up underutilized, existing technologies. The new tech-enabled UFEs, linked to value-chains, will create entrepreneurial opportunities – and more efficiently use resources and people to connect the nexus of food, water, energy and nutrition.