Track: Supply Chain Management

Abstract

In this paper, an agent-based model is employed to study urban farm interconnectivity, with the goal of increasing food availability for the population and efficiently managing food, energy and water resources. Urban farms are presented as a case study, that belong to community microgrids that generate electricity from renewables (solar, wind), in the province of Chiriqui in Panama, is utilized to investigate the food-energy-water (FEW) nexus. The idea of different farms serving different communities can be viable, however, sometimes there is a shortage of fresh food, or other times a surplus of fresh food, which leads to food wastage. Food waste has the capability of being transformed into fertilizers or into biomass energy, however when we consider the associated natural resources and costs used to produce food, avoiding waste would be a better alternative. Thus, it is crucial to investigate the food supply chain, and the interaction between different urban farms in a community shared agriculture fashion. An optimization model is employed to minimize food transportation cost between the farms within the agent-based framework. The results show that food availability is improved due to the exchange between farms while food wastage is reduced by 17,137kg. Furthermore, the simulations show that the sharing of energy through the microgrid employing renewable energy is economical and significantly reduced carbon emissions by avoiding 13,078 tonnes of CO₂ and generating 16,560 Mwh of electricity through solar, and 2,333 Mwh of electricity through wind.