Sustainable Agro-Food Supply Chain Compensating Carbon and Energy

Project Food Sustainability: Sustainable Agro-Food Supply Chain Compensating Carbon and Energy

Global food demand will double by 2050 and strain agro-food supply chains. The increasing relevance of non-agrarian activities within the food supply chain mandates a systemic perspective for addressing sustainability. We consider the food supply chain as an ecosystem and define more inclusive boundaries. We present a multi-disciplinary design framework that supports strategic decision-making on agriculture and food distribution issues while addressing climate stability. We introduced the land-network problem merging localized and large-scaled decisions as land-use allocation and location-allocation problems in an agro-food network. A linear programming model optimizes infrastructure, agriculture, and logistics costs and also balances carbon emissions within the agro-food ecosystem. Findings show the interdependency between infrastructure, production, distribution, and environmental resources. Results highlight the consequences of unbalanced planning focused solely on cost efficiency. In conclusion we identify pathways for the design of cost effective and carbon balanced agro-food ecosystems to enforce climate stability.