| 24. März | About the Global Food Summit 2020
Digitisation will change cities. For the first time in history, there is a possibility that the city will become an ecosystem - through closed production and waste cycles, through an Urban Circular Food Economy. This ecosystem should be as independent and self-sufficient as possible. Innovations and Artificial Intelligence enable a circular thinking in food production, manufacturing and resource processing that was previously unthinkable. Artificial intelligence will change the food industry:
A tomato will always be a tomato, but where and how it is produced changes at a breathtaking rate. New cultivation methods go beyond our traditional ideas. The tomato has meanwhile become a city plant, "cultivated" with artificial light in nutrient solution in a digitally controlled indoor farm.
The production of food supported by intelligent systems is already the present and will be our future: robots prepare burgers, bots help with wine purchases or scan shopping shelves to see if products are missing. Variable LED lights with their light radiation signal eternal spring for fast-growing plants. 30 harvests per year are possible.
Examples of this can be found in space travel, in greenhouses on the Arctic Circle or in biosphere reserves: Closed systems use state-of-the-art technology - solar energy from light-emitting diodes, genome editing, hydroponics or protein fibre breeding - to produce food outside the field.
This controlled urban production is consumer-oriented, without expensive, complex logistics, fresh, without pesticides or herbicides, regional and organic and thus sustainable. Land use is significantly reduced. This future has already arrived in the present.
But the new methods are still based on linear thinking and linear production. What we need, however, is networked thinking in cycles. Every by-product, every waste product is a new raw material for reuse in human nutrition, for use as animal feed; recycled for industry, for conversion into fertiliser or for use in energy production.
For the first time in history, there is a possibility that an entire city will become an ecosystem - through closed production and waste cycles, through an Urban Circular Food Economy.
We are not at the end of an era of technical and economic innovation, we are - driven by artificial intelligence - only at the beginning. Interdisciplinary cooperation, made possible by digitalisation, will lead to further fundamental changes: Nutrition and medicine will move closer together, personalized nutrition in the service of health will become more important. Productions at regional or local level will stand in the way of global logistics. Energy concepts for mobility, agriculture and housing will be linked to avoid or process food waste.
Integrative approaches to food and environmental services can and must of course also include the urban hinterland and traditional farms, which reprocess the "new" food waste. This is a field full of opportunities for innovative agriculture in search of new ways forward. The same goes for the young urban start-ups and entrepreneurs, for whom sustainability is at the heart of their production
| | | | | | | Global Food Summit "WalkTheTalk" at BayWa
exchange and networking - international start-ups, companies, politicians, associations and science - speed dating | | Bavarian Evening
With invitation only |
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| 26. März | Circular Food - An Urban Challenge
| Session 1: AI - The RoboFarmer on the Indoor-Field
Moustapha Cisse I Head of the 1st Google AI-Research Center, Ghana (tbc) Tiny robot bees pollinating fruit blossoms in an indoor farm. Fully automatic robots plant cuttings or harvest the ripe fruit. A hydroponic system provides nutrients for the plants, monitored by a computer. We are in the middle of reality in 2019. Not all approaches are ready for the market yet, but they show us what is already possible.
Above all, the use of artificial intelligence enables the transformation of previously known production methods in food production: the use of fertilizers and pesticides drops towards zero, while the CO2 footprint is low due to production in the middle of cities, close to the consumer. Water is saved. The food is absolutely ecological, fresh and above all locally produced. And in future they will be delivered directly to the consumer by autonomous delivery vehicles.
Our decisive task for the future is now to close the circle here and establish an urban "Circular Food Economy". After all, even urban food remains waste. | Session 1: The role of SDGs in a circular food economy
Prof. Eveline van Leeuwen | Department of Social Sciences, Urban Economics, University of Wageningen, Netherlands How can urban and rural areas work together to create a sustainable circular food economy? And what impact a circular food economy would have on the wellbeing of the citizens? | Session 1: AI - The RoboFarmer on the Indoor-Field
La Trobe University, Melbourne Australien Tiny robot bees pollinating fruit blossoms in an indoor farm. Fully automatic robots plant cuttings or harvest the ripe fruit. A hydroponic system provides nutrients for the plants, monitored by a computer. We are in the middle of reality in 2019. Not all approaches are ready for the market yet, but they show us what is already possible.
Above all, the use of artificial intelligence enables the transformation of previously known production methods in food production: the use of fertilizers and pesticides drops towards zero, while the CO2 footprint is low due to production in the middle of cities, close to the consumer. Water is saved. The food is absolutely ecological, fresh and above all locally produced. And in future they will be delivered directly to the consumer by autonomous delivery vehicles.
Our decisive task for the future is now to close the circle here and establish an urban "Circular Food Economy". After all, even urban food remains waste.
| Breake & Abstract Session
| Session 2: Circular Food in Urban Areas
Steven Reiße I BBSI, Canada, extract raw chitin, raw protein, and carotenoids from waste crustacean shells.(tbc) Every 2.62 seconds a human is born. So every year we are around 80 million more people who need to be supplied with water and food. Above all, the cities continue to grow. In 20 years, around two thirds of the world's population will live in metropolises and consume around 80 percent of our food there - and also dispose of it.
In the cities alone, the amount of waste is expected to double from 1.3 to 2.6 billion tons per year by 2025. The cities are therefore faced with the challenge of turning the current waste management industry into a raw materials industry in the future.
This requires new, networked thinking on the part of city administrations and not sectoral solutions. Integrative approaches to food cycle management also include the urban hinterland or traditional farms that recycle urban food waste. | Session 2: Circular Food in Urban Areas
Kees Arts I Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder, Protix, Niederlande (tbc) Every 2.62 seconds a human is born. So every year we are around 80 million more people who need to be supplied with water and food. Above all, the cities continue to grow. In 20 years, around two thirds of the world's population will live in metropolises and consume around 80 percent of our food there - and also dispose of it.
In the cities alone, the amount of waste is expected to double from 1.3 to 2.6 billion tons per year by 2025. The cities are therefore faced with the challenge of turning the current waste management industry into a raw materials industry in the future.
This requires new, networked thinking on the part of city administrations and not sectoral solutions. Integrative approaches to food cycle management also include the urban hinterland or traditional farms that recycle urban food waste. | Session 2: Circular Food in Urban Areas
Jean-Charles Guinot I Cities Engagement Manager Food Initiative, Ellen McArthur Foundation, London (tbc) Every 2.62 seconds a human is born. So every year we are around 80 million more people who need to be supplied with water and food. Above all, the cities continue to grow. In 20 years, around two thirds of the world's population will live in metropolises and consume around 80 percent of our food there - and also dispose of it.
In the cities alone, the amount of waste is expected to double from 1.3 to 2.6 billion tons per year by 2025. The cities are therefore faced with the challenge of turning the current waste management industry into a raw materials industry in the future.
This requires new, networked thinking on the part of city administrations and not sectoral solutions. Integrative approaches to food cycle management also include the urban hinterland or traditional farms that recycle urban food waste. | Lunch in the Munich Residence
| Session 3: Circular Farming - Best Practice
Dr. Michael Binder I Director Sustainability Development EVONIK If this food waste were a country, it would be the world's third largest producer of CO2 after China and the USA. But CO2 is more than a waste product. It can be processed into ethanol with the help of bacteria and used to fuel cars. CO2 would then be as valuable as oil. Only from food scraps.
Waste materials are therefore valuable resources that could be fed back into the cycle: for reuse for human consumption, processed as animal feed, raw materials for industry, converted into fertiliser or used to generate energy.
The innovative circular-flow economy secures the resource requirements of modern societies on a long-term and sustainable basis and has the potential to create a more climate-friendly agriculture. | Session 3: Circular Farming - Best Practice
N. N. I Agri Park, Peking China (tbc) If this food waste were a country, it would be the world's third largest producer of CO2 after China and the USA. But CO2 is more than a waste product. It can be processed into ethanol with the help of bacteria and used to fuel cars. CO2 would then be as valuable as oil. Only from food scraps.
Waste materials are therefore valuable resources that could be fed back into the cycle: for reuse for human consumption, processed as animal feed, raw materials for industry, converted into fertiliser or used to generate energy.
The innovative circular-flow economy secures the resource requirements of modern societies on a long-term and sustainable basis and has the potential to create a more climate-friendly agriculture. | Session 3: Circular Farming - Best Practice
Prof. Johan Six I TransLab ETH Zürich, Schweiz (confirmed) If this food waste were a country, it would be the world's third largest producer of CO2 after China and the USA. But CO2 is more than a waste product. It can be processed into ethanol with the help of bacteria and used to fuel cars. CO2 would then be as valuable as oil. Only from food scraps.
Waste materials are therefore valuable resources that could be fed back into the cycle: for reuse for human consumption, processed as animal feed, raw materials for industry, converted into fertiliser or used to generate energy.
The innovative circular-flow economy secures the resource requirements of modern societies on a long-term and sustainable basis and has the potential to create a more climate-friendly agriculture. | Session 4 Global-Panel - A Roadmap to a Global Circular Economy
Maximo Torero I FAO, Rom (confirmed)
Oriana Romero I OECD, Paris (confirmed)
Antonia Gawel I World Economic Forum, Davos (tbc)
Dr. Thomas Weber I Deutsche Akademie der Technikwissenschaften (acatech) (confirmed)
Moderation: Prof. Justus Wesseler, Wageningen Universität We have made enormous progress in the last 300 years: The calorific value of a French farmer's food in the 18th century was as low as in Rwanda around 1965, then the country with the most serious malnutrition. Meanwhile, a Frenchman consumes about 3500 calories per day, and is in tenth place among the countries that consume the most calories.
So we have found solutions to global problems: Hunger and malnutrition have decreased dramatically. Despite an increase in population, developing countries can now feed themselves themselves; famines are virtually non-existent outside Africa; our life expectancy has risen, many infectious diseases have been conquered or are falling worldwide; the number of people living in extreme poverty has fallen from 90 percent to 10 percent in 200 years.
This is also thanks to agriculture.
The trend for the future? Things are continuing to improve.
Nevertheless, there is no positive future narrative in the public socio-political debate. We discuss the opportunities artificial intelligence, urban food production and waste cycles offer for sustainability. Because the answers will help us to implement the United Nations' sustainability goals and thus also point to solutions for climate change. | End & Apero in the Munich Residence
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