This enforces the importance of understanding the connection between these resources and how to manage them efficiently. Energy and water will be required to produce food, and energy will also be required for the treatment and distribution of water. The main challenge is successfully incorporating the interconnectedness of the evolving FEW nexus, as there will be greater demand for food, energy, and water resources in the future. An approach coined the food–energy–water (FEW) nexus has been developed to investigate the interconnectedness of resources identify the synergies, complexities, and trade-offs that occur’ and design policies and systems that would meet the strategic sustainability goals for efficiently using resources. Thus, agricultural innovation is required to satisfy demands, improve food and water security, and address spatial issues. In addition, water and energy resources are needed to produce and distribute food to consumers. The production, distribution and processing of energy and water are interconnected, and it becomes increasingly important to ensure that efficient amounts are utilized. Thus, we are faced with significant challenges that require more efficient methods for utilizing resources to meet the global demand. As the demand for resources increases, we must also consider that the supply of some resources may decrease in the future.
The modern industrial world must change its demographics, urban sprawls, and increased demands for food, energy, and water resources. This has the potential to significantly reduce CO 2 emissions in areas that heavily rely on non-renewable energy sources. Moreover, the simulation results indicated that the renewable energy generation at the community microgrids aided in the generation of 22,774 Mwh from solar and 2568 Mwh from wind. As a result, the fresh food availability increased for the local community, as exemplified by the consumer purchases over the same period. Regular communication between the farms reduced food waste by 96.9% over 16 weeks. The optimization-based micro supply chain aimed to minimize costs and meet the equilibrium between food supply and demand. Each urban farm in the study collaborated to reduce food wastage and meet consumer demands, establishing farmer-to-farmer exchange in transitional agriculture. The supply chain directly linked the producers with the consumers by severing the links involved in a traditional food supply.
In this paper, an optimization framework was integrated within the agent-based model to create a micro supply chain. However, an alternative solution must be employed due to the natural resources required for production, efficiently managing resources, and adhering to sustainability guidelines. Food waste can be converted into fertilizers or bioenergy. However, at some points, they lacked supply, and at other points, there was excess supply, leading to food waste. The local farms aimed to provide fresh produce for their respective local communities. Each urban farm in the simulation belonged to a community microgrid generating electricity from solar and wind. A case study of eleven farms was investigated in Vancouver, Canada to study the linkages between the resources in the urban food, energy, and water nexus. The objectives are to efficiently manage an urban farm’s food, energy, and water resources, decrease food waste, and increase the food availability for the local community. An agent-based modeling framework is developed and employed to replicate the interactions among urban farms.
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