<p style="text-align:center"></p><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#3366ff"><strong><span style="font-size:32px">Sustainable energy usage from Farm to Feed</span></strong></span></p><p style="text-align:center"><span style="color:#3366ff"><strong><span style="font-size:32px">and its impact on climate</span></strong></span></p><h1></h1><h1><span style="font-size:24px">Challenge background:</span></h1><p>Within the agricultural realm, the circular economy approach suggests that the industry can achieve greater sustainability simply by keeping more resources and materials in use for as long as possible. This can be achieved in a number of different ways, including increased product durability, reuse and recycling, using sustainable energy. Each year, the global economy uses more than 90 trillion tons of natural resources (of which only 8% are reused), the equivalent of 1.7 of what the Earth can produce annually. Most farm machines are driven by fossil fuels, which contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and, in turn, accelerate climate change. Renewable energy and farming are a winning combination.</p><p>Wind, solar, and biomass energy can be harvested forever, providing farmers with a long-term source of income. All the energy stored in Earth's reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas is equal to the energy from only 20 days of sunshine. Many businesses have embraced the idea that today’s goods can be tomorrow’s resources and that an economy that works in loops can lead to cost savings, waste prevention, job creation and economic opportunities.</p><p>Without systems for preserving agricultural products, farmers lose income, households face food price increases, or contaminated foods torment communities with preventable diseases. Countries around the world face hurdles to building and maintaining their cold chain infrastructures. In certain regions, millions of people become ill from foodborne diseases each year. Sustainable and unbroken cold chains can help close this gap between wasted crops and the dire need for nutritious food in households. Climate change has increasing impacts on the agricultural sector and food security- from unpredictable rain patterns to intensified droughts to decreased fish stocks in unhealthy oceans. There is a dire need to satisfy the needs of growing populations in a sustainable, efficient, and affordable way to provide the required level of food delivery service <em>without</em> increasing the impact on the climate. Globally wasted food would rank third on the list of largest CO₂ emitters each year if it were a country..</p><p>______________________</p><p><a href="https://smartwatermagazine.com/news/schneider-electric/circular-economy-water-and-agriculture-a-key-role-sustainability">https://smartwatermagazine.com/news/schneider-electric/circular-economy-water-and-agriculture-a-key-role-sustainability</a></p><p><a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/smart-energy-solutions/increase-renewables/renewable-energy-and.html">https://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/smart-energy-solutions/increase-renewables/renewable-energy-and.html</a></p><p>Even taking into consideration the need for a significant increase in refrigerated transport fleets for agriculture and the associated climate impact, business as usual solutions are already predicted to contribute to increasing emissions in the cooling sector. Transport vehicles burn fossil fuels to move food that isn’t lost in the early stages of the supply chain across countries, regions, and oceans.</p><p>The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, and national commitments to climate action through the Paris Agreement currently provide a platform and an urgency to develop innovative solutions for some of our most pressing global challenges. Facing a changing climate and growing economic costs of businesses as usual, the cooling sector must radically evolve in order to meet the needs of the 1.1 billion people facing cooling access risks. In order to meet nutritional requirements of growing populations, decrease the burden of disease, and bolster farmer incomes, we must also make drastic upgrades to the agricultural cold chain system.</p><h1><span style="font-size:24px">Challenge description:</span></h1><p>Solutions to the described challenge could entail the following focus areas that the solutions could be developed for:</p><ul><li>Renewable power generation</li><li>Waste to biomass energy</li><li>Re-fuse derived fuel</li><li>Optimizing the quality of available natural resources</li><li>Tracking mechanism for transportation of fresh produce to avoid wastage</li><li>Food waste management</li><li>Water management</li><li>Regeneration of cultivable land</li><li>Storage mechanism for food to increase shelf life</li></ul><p> </p><p>Feel free to use these sub-categories as guidance to develop your solution, but please, do not feel limited by them. We want you to unleash your creativity, according to your passion, skills and to the topic you believe to be the most urgent.</p><p>The same goes for the selected technology, for us, it does not matter whether you wish to create a game, develop an augmented reality, a software, a piece of hardware, AI or a blockchain, as long as the project fulfil its purpose: helping to use Sustainable energy in Malaysia.</p>