The Global Food Network

Ideas for saving the world, continued....

The GFN is comprised of the following elements:

1. A worldwide network of organic farms.
2. Food distribution points.
3. Refrigerated vehicles.
4. Computer systems, comprising servers and software.

The primary hub of the GFN would be a website. The website would reside on a central server, along with a large database of farmers and consumers, and a software program for calculating optimal transportation logistics.

Farms involved in the network register their information through the website, including recording all likely and actual crop yields. Consumers enter their food requirements and preferences on a weekly basis. Each consumer is linked with an FDP (food distribution point).

Each week the computer takes all the information about available supplies of fresh, organic food, and all the information about food requirements and preferences, and calculates optimised delivery schedules.

Food is then collected by refrigerated trucks from the organic farms, transported to collection points (warehouses where outgoing shipments are assembled), and then delivered out to the FDPs, where it is claimed by the consumers.

Consumer preferences would be affected by several factors:

1. Proximity to their preferred food choices. e.g. it may not be cost-effective or practical to deliver certain types of crops halfway around the world; however, requests for non-local foods would be recorded by the computer, and this information made available to farmers, encouraging farmers to produce foods requested by consumers in their region.
2. Whether or not the consumer can pay for their food. The goal of the project is to ensure that everyone gets enough food, hence even if the consumer cannot pay, they would still get a box of food with a variety of fresh produce each week. However, consumers who can pay would have their preferences filled first.

Note that within 50-100 years of operation, the goal would be to provide high-quality food completely for free, to everyone in the world. Free, nutritious food would optimise the health and function of the human race, plus almost completely eliminate stress and conflict.

To begin this project, all that is required is the website, database, and software, and participation by organic farmers and consumers. Small "island networks" of organic farms and consumers could develop in populated areas, only becoming connected (as in, distributing food to each other) when practical in terms of delivery times and cost.

As technologies such as robotics and field propulsion (flying vehicles) come online over the next few decades, the systems becomes easier and easier to build. Robotic, underground farms will greatly reduce the cost and increase the quality and abundance of food, and flying refrigerated robotic trucks will make distribution fast and cheap. The computer program will direct the farms to produce whatever crops are most popular at that time. Everyone in the world will have access to an abundance of good quality food.