Controlled Environment
Agriculture

Reimagined through an investable infrastructure lens.

One of the transformative forces in the 21st century is long-term capital investment that is shaping our economy, society, and environment for decades to come. Focusing on how capital is allocated and the decision-making processes happening to drive innovation, we examined how strategic choice-making through design can influence and shape the opportunity space and anticipate the future by imagining different investment cases. We explored the potential of Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) from the lenses of sustainability, equity, intelligence, and investments. How they are shaped will play a major role in responding to complex issues like sustainability and equity. These infrastructures are at the nexus of multiple systems. How they are shaped will play a major role in responding to complex issues like sustainability and equity worldwide.

Throughout this project, we applied a Research through Design approach to imaging new archetypes that anticipate the future, embracing these complex issues to operate at the intersection of multi-systems, stakeholders, levels, and intelligence.

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Think about your most recent meal.

Do you know where the food was grown?

Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA)
Any system that uses technology to monitor and optimize growing conditions.

Maximizing designer & investor expertise

Designers are well-positioned to use a Research through Design approach to help investors recognize the full range of possibilities in the realm of CEA-based infrastructure.

Envisioning a new system

From

Narrow default mindsets about food
- Consumers don't know where their food comes from
- Good food is expensive
- Farmers and workers intimidated by data

>

Expanding mindsets
- Educating consumers about food origins
- Incentivizing behavior change to buy more ethically sourced crops
- Educating farmers/workers about AI/data

Centralized black box sites of production
- A few actors control most of the production.
- Lack of transparency about the system.

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Resilient networks
- Decentralized networks built around CEAs.
- Expanding partnerships with new actors (e.g. people who are incarcerated, pet food companies, large companies).
- Data-driven transparency in all systems.
- Making ethical food affordable.

Decisions driven by profit
- Good food is expensive and out of reach
- Human, animal, and planet costs not accounted for in the final price

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A values-driven infrastructure for producing food
- Fixed asset with long-term cash flow via long-term B2B contracts subsidizes the creation of new infrastructure.
- Creating value from waste, closed-loop systems, and nutrient exchange services.

The technological power of CEAs alone is not enough.

Any CEA-based investable infrastructure must:

Promote justice
Ensure transparency
Decentralized food production
Foster increased resilience

Expand stakeholder networks
Create value out of that which isn't currently valued
Shift default mindsets and behaviors around food

Archetypes

Archetype 1: Sustainable Superprotein
Nutrition for the 21st Century

The growth of the edible insects market is driven by the increasing greenhouse gas emissions from the livestock and poultry industries, the high nutritional environmental benefits value of insects, the environmental benefits of consuming edible insects, the rising demand for insect-derived protein in the animal feed industry, and the minimal risk of transmitting zoonotic diseases with the consumption of edible insects.

Furthermore, emerging economies are expected to provide significant growth opportunities for the players operating in this market. However, a lack of awareness regarding the benefits of insect consumption is expected to remain a major challenge for the growth of this market.

Why Edible Insects

$9.60 billion
industry by 2030

Why Edible Insects

28.3%
estimated Compound AnnualGrowth Rate

Addressing the stigma.

Through offering educational opportunities to consumers and partnering with retail businesses.

**Partner with museums**
Organizing pop-up exhibits to test cricket-based food

**Partner with retailers** Offering products to local grocery stores / restaurants

**Partner with inst. / ent.** Long-term contracts with institutions and enterprises

Restaurant Partnerships

**Easily Adoptable Food**
Insect protein can be used to supplement food and be adopted by multiple markets, including high-end restaurants and pet food to name a few.

Insect Quality of Life

**Hibernation**
Insects are harvested by reducing the temperatures in their environment to a degree that initiates a natural hibernation process. Once the insects have gone into hibernation, they are removed from the living environment and frozen in large freezers, effectively being killed while in a state of sleep and without experiencing stress or fear.

Job Training

Archetype 2: Agro Alliance
A resiliency-building network for farmers

Although many people around the world enjoy eating avocados, far fewer are aware of the many challenges in the avocado supply chain. For example, many avocado growers in Mexico are extorted by criminals who seek to take advantage of this highly concentrated and lucrative industry. The economic pressure to meet selling quotas combined with low formal political authority puts growers in a marginalized position.

In situations like this, as well as in cases of environmental disaster (which will become increasingly common due to climate change), farmers need services that will provide them with financial security, emergency services, and cooperative networks of other growers who can cover their production needs when their farms are out of commission. Agro Alliance is a global CEA- based network that provides farmers with these specialized services.

Why Agro Alliance

$3.1 billion
avocado imports from the US to Mexico in 2022

Grower Emergency Hotline

**Incident Report**
A live Agro Alliance representative provides customized advice and support to farmers via 24/7 WhatsApp chat functions.

Consumer Education

**QR Code**
The Agro Alliance sticker that is on each avocado links to a poster campaign educating consumers about ethical supply chains.

Investment can make a better future real

A more just, sustainable and resilient food future is possible. Infrastructural investment decisions have the power to be a headwind (actively working against), tailwind (actively supporting), or neutral force (which by default supports the status quo) in relation to this imagined future.

It is our hope that investors take seriously the opportunities we have outlined here for arriving at this more desirable food future. We are enthusiastic about these proposals to scale sustainable protein and build emergency infrastructures for farmers because of their strong potential to expand mindsets, build resilience and create thriving for all.