Exploring strategic intervention points for AI in urban food systems.
Project Goal
Inform businesses and policy-makers on enabling resilience and security in food systems through strategic AI interventions.
Research Question
How might AI accelerate progress towards a circular food system?
Research Process
Literature Review
Explore Problem Space (Climate Change & Urban Food Systems)
Explore Possible Solutions (AI & Circular Economy)
Case Studies
3 Horizons Workshop
Identifies systemic barriers to food security and system resilience in the present
Generates Collaborative Vision for Future Food Systems
Generates Strategic intervention Points for AI to transition to desired future
Participants
Subject Matter Experts
Artificial Intelligence
Agri-Foods
Urban Agriculture
Biotechnology
Critical Infrastructure Planning
Circular Design
Generalists
Foresight & Futures Studies
Art & Design
3 Horizons Framework
Horizon 1: Status Quo
Seeks to understand what issues are plaguing current food systems
Drivers of food insecurity and lack of resilience
Horizon 2: Innovation Space
Seeks to identify opportunities to build a bridge between the desired future and current reality
H+ Opportunities: Disrupts status quo and actively brings about new paradigm that will govern the desired future
H- Opportunities: Incremental improvements to the status quo brings us closer to the desired future
Horizon 3: Desired Future
Generative Co-visioning of a desired future that accomplishes food security & resilient systems
Defines new core values that align actions, incentives, and priorities with desired outcomes
Project Insights
Threats to food security & system resilience
Centralization of Food Production
Environmental Degradation
Interconnected & Long Supply Chains
Waste
Premiums on sustainably & ethically sourced foods
Climate Change – Cascading Impacts
Patterns of behaviours driving threats
Producers
Industrialization of Farming
Profit-Driven Crop Selection
Minimizing Labor Costs
Maximizing Selling Windows
Expanding Revenue Streams (Seed IP, Processed Foods, Land Leasing)
Retailers
Rejecting Cosmetic Defects
Just-In-Time Deliveries
Expanding Supply Chain
Consumers
Purchasing behaviour driven by price
Food Waste
Government
Lack of transparency in food labelling
Policies incentivizing international supply chain
Policy influenced by food lobbies
Project Outcomes
Strategic AI interventions
Supply chain optimization to minimize food and energy waste
Predictive AI forecasting food demand to “right size” production
AI as a research accelerant in food science
Integrating distributed local production
Automating regenerative farming operations
Optimizing crop selection for soil health
Waste Reduction through resource optimization in communities
LASERRS: Innovation framework derived from co-visioned future food systems
Localism, Accessibility, Sustainability, & Ethics as core vales
Policy and project incentives to be linked to core values.
Measures of success define desired features of future food systems.
Measures of success: Regeneration, Food Secure, Resilient
FULL REPORT
Available through the OCAD University Open Research Repository