The market
Since 2010, half of the world's population has lived in town. The number of people involved in urban agriculture in the world are estimated at 800 million who produce at least 15 % of global food production. Urban agriculture as it is practiced today is not above all a source of money, but rather a tool to ensure food security. In only a few countries, more than a third of production is sold on the market, hence the limited data on sales and turnover. In Madagascar and Nigeria, the share of income from urban agriculture exceeds 50 % of the income from those who are part of the bottom of the pyramid. Low -income city dwellers devote between 40 and 60 % of their daily income to food, which increases the need to ensure better nutrition at the local level. By 2015, at least 25 cities are expected to have 10 million or more inhabitants. This requires the importation of at least 6,000 tonnes of food per day in each city. As the cost of transporting the farm to the city's store can represent up to 90 % of the overall margin, the food sold in town is above the means of the poor who must survive the excavation, which leads to chronic poverty, malnutrition and health risks. To meet the needs of the 250 million city dwellers in the world, food production in cities must at least double in order to meet the basic needs. The city of Havana is perhaps the one that has best managed to use urban agriculture to ensure food security. There are 300,000 garden patios covering 2,500 hectares and they expect their number to reach half a million small gardens by 2015. More than 40 % of households are involved in urban agriculture, y Including the widespread use of hydroponics which ensures a healthy daily intake of 2,600 calories per capita. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the hunger that struck the nation, Cuba in general and the capital of Havana, in particular, succeeded in the space of a decade to eliminate malnutrition. While during this same decade, each adult Cuban lost an average of ten kilos in body weight, 22 % of all new jobs in the country were created in urban agriculture. Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, also stimulates flourishing urban agriculture. More than a quarter of the poor of Harare practice this type of agriculture which represents up to 60% of food consumption. 80 % of urban agriculture in Harare is practiced on public land and today - a sign of the inventiveness of people to overcome malnutrition and poverty - 25 % of urban land is covered by small farms. Poor city dwellers are not limited to the Third World. In the United States, 50 million people suffer from food insecurity and in Europe, the number of undernourished citizens is estimated at 30 million. A city like Chicago has 600 community gardens with 300,000 square meters of green roofs. Detroit has 1,300 community gardens. The start -up cost of a 2,000 square meter plot is calculated at $ 25,000 at hand of available microfinance programs, not necessarily easily accessible.
Innovation
Urban agriculture is considered to be on a small scale and unproductive. The main challenge is to ensure quality control and increase productivity. The introduction of permaculture and hydroponic culture in an urban environment was a first breakthrough. Permaculture was born from the logic of the combination of the three kingdoms of nature (plants, animals and minerals) and the wisdom of biologists until the 1970s. It has since been replaced by the theory of the five kingdoms (bacteria/monera , Algae/Protista, fungi, plants and animals). This made it possible to extend local agriculture effective to mushrooms and algae, as has been demonstrated in cases 3 and 21. However, given the need to double the production of urban agriculture, which could reduce The cost of food for poor city dwellers up to 90 % by eliminating the need for transport, storage and cooling, more ambitious ideas and business spirit are necessary. If urban agriculture has worked well in tropical climates, the question is also to what extent it is viable in cold and temperate environments. Mohamed Hage, born in Lebanon, is a natural entrepreneur. He launched a website on robotics and electronics supported by advertising, which quickly evolved to become Cypra Media, one of the most important marketing service providers by email in his adopted country, Canada . Outdoor passionate and passionate about excellent cooking and fresh food, he remembered his first years in a Mediterranean climate and began to think about a new agricultural model that can be applied in big cities. Living in Montreal, Canada, where winters are rough and cold, he imagined how the greenhouses on the roofs could provide the food that the city needs. Although he was a technology expert, his agriculture know-how was limited. He created an alliance with the university environment of McGill University and explored ways to use his entrepreneurial skills to develop a business model that goes hand in hand with innovation. Beyond community gardens that only work half the year. He imagined an operation in the long year despite the winter cold.
The first cash flow
Mohamed mobilized two million dollars and created the Lufa farms, a name inspired by the Lebanese plant Luffa (Luffa Aegyptiaca), which was used in his house as a vegetable sponge and served at the start of hydroponics. He mobilized a diversified and integrated team all the know-how available locally to build the first agricultural garden on the roofs, adapted to the snow loads of Canadian winter while respecting the codes of the urban building. It took a lot of patience to carry out this well documented and well -funded project. It took a year to modify the city zoning codes to allow agriculture in the city center. He has overcome all technical and legal challenges in four years and now provides food for downtown people to meet their daily fruit and vegetable needs all year round. The installation is located in the Ahuntsic-Cartierville in Montreal, near the central market on a 3,000 square meter roof. It provides 1,000 baskets of fresh products per week for a price between 32 and $ 42 Canadian. Although private donations and scientific, technical and free engineering support have made it possible to materialize this first operation, other facilities are necessary to make the company profitable. While the structure of the roof does not allow to cultivate potatoes or carrots, since the amount of earth could not be supported by the roof, it focuses on tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, peppers, eggplant , lettuce, bok choy and herbs for a range of around 25 to 30 varieties of products grown on the roof. To complete the missing elements of a complete family basket, Mohamed has teamed up with organic urban farms. A study confirmed that this approach to urban agriculture generates foods without pesticides and GMOs in a space ten times smaller than a conventional farm. All the necessary rainwater is collected and the different temperature needs throughout the year are managed by "hot and cold" areas adapted to the ideal growth conditions of the product. An increase in productivity by factor ten, a decrease in eight factor transport energy, a reduction in building energy costs, water self -sufficiency while agriculture is responsible for 80% of the global consumption of total consumption of Drinking water, make this operation an interesting case of the blue economy. The success of this first operation earned Mohamed in 2011 the "Next Generation Award" in 2011 that the city of Montreal awarded him.
The opportunity
The systemic approach to convert the available roof surfaces, use rainwater, manage temperature control inside buildings, providing downtown foods to competitive costs, without chemical control, reducing considerably Transport, by creating a dozen full -time jobs and by associating peri -urban and urban agriculture in the same set which meets the food needs of citizens offers a perspective on how to meet the challenge of double production in centers -irles, especially in temperate and cold climates where the construction of a green roof was already a revolution. The United States has 1.4 billion square meters of space available on flat roofs covering commercial and offices. According to the Montreal experience of LUFA farms, this would mean that 50 million families could receive a basket of fresh vegetables each working day of the week while creating 470,000 additional jobs. This implies that there is no reason to have 50 million poor urban people, provided that there are entrepreneurs like Mohamed who are ready to change the rules of the game to become competitive and lasting. In addition, this would represent a major contribution to a healthy food in a country where a large part of the population suffers from obesity. The successful implementation of a strategy of such a scale to provide healthy and local foods requires a set of new partnerships on the model of those that Mohamed has successfully forged. He works with construction engineers, greenhouse technicians, organic farmers, marketing and distribution experts, internet magicians, cooperative companies, real estate investment funds, architects, local politicians and Nutritionists, all necessary with real estate developers to carry out this innovative approach. The objective is not only to produce food, but to make a competitive offer that ensures local development based on local resources that we offer in the blue economy, and to build assets beyond what Investors have seen recently. What is clear, however, is that everyone must go beyond their main activity in order to fully exploit the potential of their assets and their cash flows, which requires a new generation of entrepreneurs.
