The Urban Agriculture Imperative
InvertiGro is delighted to have had the opportunity to present at, and participate in, a Vertical Farming panel discussion during Canberra's first ever sustainable food event, Food in the Capital (17 November 2020). Focussing on sustainable food futures and urban agriculture opportunities, the event brought together leading minds from food businesses and manufacturers, community groups, farmers, thought leaders and policy makers, from down the road, across Australia and around the globe.
By 2050, cities will be the consumers of more than 80% of the world's food. With increasing global food security and sustainability challenges, more common-place extreme climate events and diminishing arable land as cities expand into some of the most fertile food bowls across the planet, the imperative for a more sustainable urban agriculture food future is now.
For the Australian Capital Territory to achieve its zero net emissions target by 2045, it must start to build a sustainable urban food production system, including reducing and using food waste. To this end Regional Development Australia recently developed a Proposal for Sustainable Urban Food in the Australian Capital Territory. The proposal aims to:
Assist Canberra to become a fully sustainable city
Build local businesses maximising the economic impact and jobs
Enhance liveability, nutrition, community engagement and inclusiveness.
Another initiative of Regional Development Australia, Food in the Capital sets out to highlight and explore practical solutions to food production, transport and sales. The event will initiate the building of a unique city region agrifood initiative. It is envisaged that improvements to local food systems could conservatively:
Generate up to 3,000 jobs for the local economy.
Reduce Canberran’s grocery costs by $200 million
InvertiGro Co-founder and CEO, Ben Lee featured on the big screen with a short video introduction to InvertiGro, what we do, where we're at, and how our end-to-end indoor vertical farming systems can help 'feed the world the smarter way'. InvertiGro Co-founder and COO, Paul Millett, participated in a panel discussion as to how vertical farms can be part of the solution to a more sustainable and secure urban food future.
Our participation at the combination virtual/face-to-face event, builds on InvertiGro co-founder Ben Lee's webbite with Suzanne Gearing earlier in the year and also presented the opportunity for InvertiGro to showcase our InvertiWall, productive green wall installation at the green-star Ginninderry Development which is already growing healthy, fresh and hyper-local produce in Australia's capital.
As the first in a series of three one-day events over the next 12 months, we look forward to continuing the conversation towards a more sustainable food future for Canberra and beyond. Event two is scheduled for 18 May 2021. See Food in the Capital for further details.