Discussion » Agricultural zoning regulated on the basis of climate-research? Finance for that?
Agricultural zoning regulated on the basis of climate-research? Finance for that?
Dear all
this is a re-post from the introduction round ( Jorge Llanos Pedraja ), to give Jorge's questions prominence for all of you to participate in providing feedback.
I hope other Green Finance members may relate to this challenge personally or professionally.
Thank you and best wishes,
Karin
Jorge had posted the following:
"Currently, we are developing sustainable means for conserving agricultural areas within zoning and land use regulations which are constantly beaten by hazardous climate change."
My first question is, considering that changes in climate may harden or may occur and that improvisation is the only means to deal how does green finance approach these circumstances?In the recovery of families disposed of dwellings, loss of members, etc.In 2014, I suggested that we should reserve agricultural areas from development due to climate change and a law was passed by the government willingly protecting all agricultural areas from being absorbed by urbanization. Right now we have begun green agriculture from traditional farming methods which do not provide crop conservation from pesticides and vulnerability to chemical ingredients. Therefore, for the first time, I was able to buy a product that is produced free of an artificial or industrialized system. And it tastes better than the industrialized foods. While I was in New York, there are stores that are natural produce.
My second question is, does green finance favor or support these methods? The reason is that we have to develop a system of farming that can be "out of reach of climate changes" and effects, and I mean not only us.
Initiatives
News & Discussions
| 1
DearJorge Llanos Pedraja- to make it easier for some of us to attend your questions, please help me clarify what exactly you would like to discuss/find out:
Question 1: Which of the following is your question?
1A. How does green finance incorporate the likely effects of climate change?, or
1B. How does green finance incorporate the need to improvise when adapting to the effects of climate change?
1C. Other. Please specify
Also, the platform is full of different disciplines, so perhaps for those that have not worked on land-use aspects before, could you elaborate the "zoning regulated on the basis of climate-research" for your specific example?
Question 2: Is my reading correct?
Are there green finance instruments which support non-chemical (agricultural/food) production of food, who are the funders (government incentives, private sector/supply chain e.g. buyer organisation), and how do these finance instruments work?
While not being an agricultural expert myself ( hence I hope the other community members hop in and provide you their thoughts !) , I see several threads for development re. the "agriculture and resilience to climate change" nexus. One is smart agriculture using IoT, another one permaculture and non-chemical agriculture on land which has been declared agricultural. And yet another one is a more industrial production type, in-door.
Perhaps worth a discussion re. how the future of sustainable farming might as well look like:
A nation who keeps impressing me is the Netherlands / Holland who with very little land is one of the world’s largest agricultural producers, exporting 65 billion Euros worth of vegetables, fruit, flowers, meat and dairy products each year (see this info by the Government of the Netherlands, Jan 2017). This year (2017), they have introduced the first European "vertical farming" (see thisNational Geographic article on Holland's sustainable farming, Sept 2017) which is a 9-storey-high vertical lettuce farm in the city of Dronten claiming "yields [from indoor farming] as much lettuce as 10 outdoor acres and cuts the need for chemicals by 97 percent".
Staay Food Groupis investing 8 million euros in the project. A large part of the costs is for special LED lighting.
Philips is developing lights that change colours, to influence the taste and the vitamin count in its GrowWise Center on the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. GrowWise stands for a smarter, more sustainable way of growing vegetables for urban populations.
Reduced land used for agriculture: With multiple floors to grow crops, a high-rise has a large surface area in a relatively small space.
Reduced emissions from transport: The fact that high-rise buildings can be built in city centres is an added benefit. Fresh products can now be grown very close to the consumer. Which answers the increased demand for sustainable, locally grown products.
No pesticides or chlorine washes: In the multi-floored building, all crops are sheltered from bad weather and insects, so farmers can grow them without insecticides.
Symbiosis by design: Some vertical farms use a circular system, expanding their business with fish and adding fish farms to the building. The fish excrement is then collected and used to fertilize the vegetables.
Efficiency gains (energy, water)The articles also present energy-efficiency as an advantage for sustainability, despite that producing indoors will imply an actual increase in energy consumption (compared to using natural light outdoor). "The climate chambers in Dronten are energy efficient, using less water, electricity and fertilizer than traditional farming. They aim for CO2 neutral production." It would be nice to learn more about the particular case and - if available - similar cases, how high the resulting energy consumption is and if the efficiency gains of indoor production (reduced water, chemicals, increased productivity) versus outdoor production (which often results in a lot of damaged produce and food waste) can outweigh this growth in energy consumption.
It would be great to learn more about how, for example in this particular case, this innovation was motivated, and if the initiative has been able to benefit from specific sustainability incentives including financial and non-financial ones (e.g., low interest loans, or innovation promotion grants, or else).
Discussion » Agricultural zoning regulated on the basis of climate-research? Finance for that?
Agricultural zoning regulated on the basis of climate-research? Finance for that?
Dear all
this is a re-post from the introduction round ( Jorge Llanos Pedraja ), to give Jorge's questions prominence for all of you to participate in providing feedback.
I hope other Green Finance members may relate to this challenge personally or professionally.
Thank you and best wishes,
Karin
Jorge had posted the following:
"Currently, we are developing sustainable means for conserving agricultural areas within zoning and land use regulations which are constantly beaten by hazardous climate change."
Dear Jorge Llanos Pedraja - to make it easier for some of us to attend your questions, please help me clarify what exactly you would like to discuss/find out:
Question 1: Which of the following is your question?
Also, the platform is full of different disciplines, so perhaps for those that have not worked on land-use aspects before, could you elaborate the "zoning regulated on the basis of climate-research" for your specific example?
Thank you for a brief explanation from your side.
Best, Karin
Dear Jorge,
thanks for clarifying.
While not being an agricultural expert myself ( hence I hope the other community members hop in and provide you their thoughts !) , I see several threads for development re. the "agriculture and resilience to climate change" nexus. One is smart agriculture using IoT, another one permaculture and non-chemical agriculture on land which has been declared agricultural. And yet another one is a more industrial production type, in-door.
Perhaps worth a discussion re. how the future of sustainable farming might as well look like:
A nation who keeps impressing me is the Netherlands / Holland who with very little land is one of the world’s largest agricultural producers, exporting 65 billion Euros worth of vegetables, fruit, flowers, meat and dairy products each year (see this info by the Government of the Netherlands, Jan 2017 ). This year (2017), they have introduced the first European "vertical farming" (see this National Geographic article on Holland's sustainable farming, Sept 2017) which is a 9-storey-high vertical lettuce farm in the city of Dronten claiming "yields [from indoor farming] as much lettuce as 10 outdoor acres and cuts the need for chemicals by 97 percent".
Finance / Investment in this case:
On sustainability, available articles post the following advantages ( see this article from Holland Trade & Invest, April 2017, and this one from Produce Grower, Feb 2017 ):
It would be great to learn more about how, for example in this particular case, this innovation was motivated, and if the initiative has been able to benefit from specific sustainability incentives including financial and non-financial ones (e.g., low interest loans, or innovation promotion grants, or else).