Circular (Urban) Food Hub

Floyd Kerry Babb                                                        

Kerry is an accomplished future-forward professional with a multiple-faceted experience and capabilities. He is an effective problem-solver with keen innovative prowess having work his touch North, Central and South America; Europe; Africa and the Caribbean. Kerry excels in Sustainable Development, Technology and Project Management. Currently, Kerry is a part of the Clinton Global Initiative responding to the re-development and resilience of Caribbean countries in the aftermath of crises.

His leadership enables effective collaborations at all levels including, government heads, mayors, and other officials. As Co-Chairman of the Miami Beach Chamber’s Sustainability Committee he helped Miami Beach to drive sustainability awareness among businesses. A recent sustainable agriculture project in Iceland attracted praises from high government officials. 

Kerry excelled working with Fortune 500 organizations like AT&T, Bank of New York, Salomon Brothers, JP Morgan, Caribbean Development Bank, and the U.S. Department of Energy in both leadership and ownership.  

The Problem:

Developing circular economies within the food industry to minimize wastage and reduce the carbon footprint from production, delivery and consumption; create new jobs opportunities and introduce healthy foods to both food deserts and affluent cities.

Solution:

A Circular Systems approach to Food Security which is Smart Creative and Innovative in the form of a Sustainable, Robust, Resilient (Urban) Food Hub. 

The Hub consists of indoor and outdoor gardens, powered by renewable energy and waste management systems.

Impact:  

A lesson of Covid-19 calls for adaptability and innovation. Having all key elements of a robust food system centrally located, will improve resilience as markets, economies, and emerging situations require. 

Circular economy principles create food systems organically woven into the urban fabric by closing loops; limiting waste, energy-inefficiencies and emissions, while supporting a variety of food elements from production to processing, consumption, and distribution. Enabling Logical synergies. 

Solution: 

Eliminating food Deserts and embracing circular food economies in Miami/Dade county, Florida with population 2.7 Million and area 630 hectares with no circular food systems. 

Ellen Macarthur Foundation studied the current food systems' impact on the environment and discovered that current (linear) systems promote numerous health and climate issues. Findings showed circular and sustainable food systems would create healthier food products and improve climatic challenges when employed.

Brussels, Belgium showed an annual reductions of 42,000 tons greenhouse gases per year plus water savings of 21 million cubic meters! Soil improvement resulted in $11 million saved by preventing soil degradation. Less pesticide, cleaner air and water, and decreased microbial resistance reduced health care cost by $31 million per year by 2035.

Project Outcome:

Transitioning to sustainable, circular food economy requires government's  endorsement of this concept, where new competencies, skills and professions will emerge, and an improved quality of life will permeate society. The value is revealed once developed.

 “Cities and the Circular Economy for Food”- Ellen MacArthur Foundation 

                    GLOBALLY LINEAR FOOD SYSTEMS PRODUCE:

• 4.3 billion tons of GHGs per year
• Emissions from 1 Billion Vehicles annually
• 15 Million ha of arable land degeneration per year
• 450 trillion litres water.

INTEGRATED URBAN FARMING AND CONSUMPTION ELEMENTS TO FORM A CIRCULAR FOOD SYSTEM

 1) High-tech Indoor Food Growing Facilities

 2) An Outdoor Food Garden Terrace with renewable energy facilities

 3) Multipurpose arena integrated to work in cohesion with each other

 4)  Collaboration Hub .

The High-Tech Indoor Facilities showcases different types of high-tech food growing systems operating complementary to each other to provide a wide range of different fruits, vegetables, herbs, and horticulture. 

The Outdoor Food Garden - A modular urban garden where materials up-cycling and food production more suited to soil-based agriculture, which host a medley of renewable energy for power. 

Circular Economy Aspects - A multipurpose unit fostering cross-silo integrated processes keeping operational loops closed while displaying the circular, zero-waste operations. Co-working spaces for related disciplines like growing, processing, production, packaging, distribution, policy, planning and design. The on-site food processor will transform excess produce eliminating waste.

Urban Food Collaboration Hub - A dynamic space hosting events while food production has direct access to farmer’s market, on-site activities with restaurants an bars, indoor and outdoor dining. A win-win-win situation for grower, processor, and consumer. 

This integration closes the linear loops of production delivery and consumption while reducing food waste.

Food Deserts, Local Community and Agri-entrepreneurs. 

Greatest service would be to the areas called food deserts. They would realize a "new" option for healthy food and employment opportunities.

The ‘Hub’ impacts the growing demand for wellness, sustainability, and improved standard of living for all demographics. In cities with cold winters, it offers a pleasant, green, and uplifting environment providing warmth and greenery all year round. In hot, humid times a cool environment to relax and commune.

Our research food deserts will determine the available food options and quality food access. Surveys will reveal their taste in food, and desire to have a healthy food hub on their doorstep. 

Most cities have no single attraction that offers; organic food gardens, green markets and shops, farm to table restaurants & bars, exhibitions, healthy living environment, business & conference facilities, and sustainable food production under one roof. This is innovative.

Examine many global cities especially during the Covid-19 days, there's an increase in the number successful agri-entrepreneurs seeking collaborations. 

When these initiatives develop a robust foothold and the emerging local networks become stronger they will embrace more aspects of the circular economy, zero waste and locally grown food movement. That is creative.

The problem in Miami/Dade county, Florida is the propensity of linear farming which encourages food wastage, increase carbon footprint and the perpetuation of food deserts. Developing circular economies within the food industry will minimize wastage and reduce the carbon footprint from production, delivery and consumption; create new jobs opportunities and introduce healthy foods to both food deserts and affluent areas of the county. Elevating the lives of the people formally left behind. 

This food hub concept can be implemented from scale almost anywhere in the county to provide healthy food to the under-served. 

This Circular urban hub project evolved from a rejection to collaborate by the Helsingborg Sweden Smarter City Expo committee. As a Smart City consultant and Smart Agriculture Project developer, our diverse group of professionals decided to develop a project to enter the H22 Smart City Expo in Helsingborg. Having recently designed a large-scale Smart, Sustainable and Circular Farm in Iceland we sought to enter the Expo by collaborating with the City in a Smart Agriculture project, only to be rejected as our project did not fit their criteria and size. In an effort to find a Smart Project with which to enter, we decided on a smaller scale circular farm with an Urban flavour in the form of a 'Hub' should work. After weeks of research, collaboration and design work, this project was born.  

My passion is about projects that are Smart and Sustainable and bring a higher quality of life for people of the planet. The Smart Cities element of Smart Health is as a direct result of Smart Agriculture, producing healthy food for the planet in a sustainable manner. This project became much more relevant since COVID-19 revealed that Food Security is an important feature for Global cities and countries as a whole.  Also, this project seeks to reduce the amount of food deserts in many Urban and peri-urban communities across the globe. Then there is the Sustainability aspect of producing healthy food close to where they are consumed and eliminating the carbon footprint of food delivery across the planet. With this project, using extensive data analytics and research and development, cities in the arctic region could grow their own "exotic" fruits and vegetable like avocados, mangoes and bananas without having to import them from thousands of miles away. 

We have a very skilled and experience Management team and Team of Advisors available for this project. Skilled Collaborators from previous smart agriculture project are at our disposal for advice and implementation of thi and any scale project. Our Greenhouse Farming advisors from the Netherlands, AAB Int, with decades of Smart Farming experience, will lead our construction efforts, while the following Management and Advisory Team will design and execute the project. We also are in conversations with funding mechanisms willing to fund such projects.

Kerry Babb (USA & Caribbean) BSc., MSc., MBA - Innovation, Technology &                                                                               Sustainability

Bonnie Lewtas (Holland & Caribbean) BA, Msc., Circularity & Sustainability                                                                           Expert  

Ajay Rajnath Vempati (USA & India) MSc., Agricultural Specialist/ Chemical                                                                   Engineer 

 Alana Libow (USA) MBA., Design and Systems Thinker for Food Systems

Stephanie Mason (USA) Phd., Mphil., M.S.E., BS., Research & Development                                                                             Director/ Chemical Analyst

Michael Fagan (USA & Caribbean) BA, Food Processing and Market                                                                            Development Expert

Chris Jones BA(Hons), BLA., Landscape and Urban Designer:                                                 Focus Urban Food Systems and Circular Economy Synergies

Sara Utter (Helsingborg, Sweden) BSc., Experienced Local Agricultural                                                                       Specialist & Project Leader

This project was born out of a difficult situation with the Helsingborg Sweden Smarter City Expo committee. Our team spent three monthe developing a Smart Agriculture Farming project to potentially participate in the H-22 Smart City Expo in Helsingborg, Sweden. But our request for collaboration was rejected by the Helsingborg Sweden Smarter City Expo committee. 

With dejected our spirits and reduced our zeal to move forward we contemplated surrendering. But, in analyzing their rejection statement, I realized that our offering for an extensive farm was too large an event for their purposes, so we reconvened the team to design an Urban Hub that would fit into a a Smart City Expo. Our Food Systems design team came up with the idea of an Urban Food Hub, then we made it Circular and Sustainable. Now we are poised to re-engage the City of Helsingborg, but first we saw a need for this project right here in Miami, Florida USA. We are about to engage the City of Miami (Municipality) for an audience to propose a Public Private Partnership to move the project to implementation.

In 2019, an opportunity to elevate the lives of a country by developing a large-scale Smart Agriculture project in Iceland emerged. "Feeding the World from the Edge of the Arctic Circle".

While speaking to my Icelandic friend, he and his family was about to have a Mexican dinner with Guacamole etc. My first instinct was that avocados can't grow in Iceland! Further conversations led me to realize they import them form Mexico and Ecuador, as they do bananas, pineapples etc. Further conversations on the topic led me to visit to see how we could reduce the food import bill to Iceland as they imported almost 90% of their food. Then developed a great business case for large-scale indoor agriculture.

We assembled a local team to align with my business partners. I was introduced to the President of Iceland's Farmer's Association, The Dean of the Agriculture University and the Vice-Mayor of Reykjavik. We designed the project, did feasibility studies, a budget and developed a business plan.

After receiving the endorsement of the Prime Minister and Finance Minister, 50 hectares of land from a municipality close to a Southern Port, the project is now awaiting approval from a group of investors.

Circularity of food systems. Traditional food systems are linear. Combination of already existing technologies but not used in this integrated manner

Currently this project is based in Miami/Dade County of Florida currently 350,000

10.5 million 

50 million 

Scale up to Global expansion 

Covid-19 pandemic..

Funding...

Partnerships....

Municipal Governments 

University 

Food processors

Circularity..

Social impact...

Economical impact....

Environmental Impact...

Investment Capital..

Scaling up through Revenue and Investment....

Applications outstanding..

30 millions 

30 million 

Guidance and Avenue for funding 

Form Public private partnerships...

Municipal Government 

National Governments 

Agri-Tech companies