Global Centers Track 2: Climate-Smart Food-Energy-Water Nexus in Small Farms

全球有超过20亿人生活在5.7亿个小规模农场中，其中40%的人每天的收入不足2美元。联合国预测，小农场是实现到2050年将粮食产量提高70%以养活100亿人口的目标的关键。不幸的是，小农极易受到极端气候、水资源短缺以及农用化学品、能源和劳动力成本高昂的影响，同时缺乏获得创新技术和设备的机会。发展气候智能型循环小农农业系统势在必行；然而，没有一个单一的研究或利益相关者网络可以涵盖开发这样一个系统的科学、技术、经济和社会见解的全部范围，但每个网络对于综合解决方案都是至关重要的。采用食物-能源-水（FEW）联系技术和基础设施，通过使小型农场具有气候适应性，减少对外源能源、水和肥料供应的依赖，为这些问题提供了一种资源高效的解决方案。该项目的总体目标是开发一个可扩展的平台，用于整合孤立的研究，并提供切实可行的FEW联系解决方案，以确保易受气候影响的小农场的繁荣。这一目标将通过融合领先的、适应性最强的FEW技术、经验和知识来实现，这些技术、经验和知识目前孤立于北美、拉丁美洲、非洲和东南亚的不同网络和不同国家。合作伙伴是根据农业生产和生物经济发展的不同经验、地缘政治可行性以及我们团队通过美国国家科学基金会和美国国际开发署项目建立的联系来选择的。该项目旨在创建一个基于循环生物经济原则的可扩展平台，将孤立的研究整合到一个系统的技术路线图中，以指导开发可再生、稳健和有弹性的解决方案，将小农场转变为气候智能型、碳负负型和高公众接受度的盈利单位。这一目标将通过融合目前分布在北美、拉丁美洲、非洲、欧洲和东南亚的不同网络和不同国家的领先和最具适应性的FEW技术、经验和知识来实现。具体目标包括：(1)在作物冠层上方设计传感器驱动的角度可调太阳能阵列发电，通过保护作物免受过度辐射、风和雨的影响来提高作物产量，并将雨水收集/转移到现场储存，如湿地池塘，用于后续的精准灌溉；(2)从牲畜粪便中生产和升级沼气；(3)将沼气消化物和作物残留物转化为生物肥料。(4)促进有利于土壤再生和健康的方法；(5)发展社会经济模式以确保可负担性、可行性和公平性；(6)培训循环生物经济的未来劳动力。该项目通过新课程、海外留学项目、高级设计课程和学生研讨会吸引了来自传统黑人学院和大学的学生。项目成果将通过外联活动、出版物、演讲和社交媒体传播。该奖项由全球中心项目资助，该项目是一个创新项目，支持以使用为灵感的研究，解决与气候变化和/或清洁能源相关的全球挑战。Track 2设计奖支持美国的研究人员将国际团队聚集在一起，开发研究问题和合作伙伴关系，进行景观分析，综合数据，和/或建立多方利益相关者网络，以推进他们未来更大规模的使用灵感研究。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Globally, more than 2 billion people live on 570 million small-scale farms with 40% of them on incomes of less than 2 U.S. dollars per day. The United Nations projects that small farms are key to achieving the goal of 70% increase in food production required to feed 10 billion people by 2050. Unfortunately, smallholders are highly vulnerable to extreme climate, water scarcity, and high costs of agrochemicals, energy, and labor while lacking access to innovative technologies and equipment. It is imperative to develop a climate-smart circular smallholder farming system; however, no single research or stakeholder network can encompass the full spectrum of scientific, technological, economic, and societal insights to develop such a system, yet each network is crucial to the integrated solutions. The adoption of food-energy-water (FEW) nexus technologies and infrastructure presents a resource-efficient solution to these problems by making small farms climate-resilient and less dependent on exogenous supply of energy, water, and fertilizers.The overarching goal of the project is to develop a scalable platform for integrating siloed research and providing tangible FEW nexus solutions that ensure prosperity of climate-vulnerable small farms. This goal will be achieved by converging the leading and most adaptable FEW technologies, experiences, and knowledge that are currently siloed in different networks and various countries in North America, Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. The partners are selected according to diverse experiences in agricultural production and bioeconomy development, geopolitical feasibility, and the connections our team has established through NSF and USAID projects. The project aims to create a scalable platform—based on the principles of circular bioeconomy—for integrating siloed research into a systematic technical roadmap that can guide the development of regenerative, robust, and resilient solutions for transforming small farms into climate-smart, carbon-negative, and profitable units with high public acceptance. This goal will be achieved by converging the leading and most adaptable FEW technologies, experiences, and knowledge that are currently distributed in different networks and various countries in North America, Latin America, Africa, Europe, and Southeast Asia. Specific objectives include (1) designing sensor-driven angle-adjustable solar arrays above crop canopy to generate electricity, increase crop production by protecting crops from excessive radiation, wind, and rain, and collect/divert rainwater to on-site storage, such as wetland pond, for subsequent precision irrigation, (2) producing and upgrading biogas from livestock manure, (3) valorizing biogas digestates and crop residues into biofertilizers, (4) promoting approaches that favor soil regeneration and health, (5) developing socioeconomic models to ensure affordability, viability, and equitability, and (6) training future workforce in circular bioeconomy. The project engages students from historically black colleges and universities through new curricula, study abroad programs, senior design courses, and student workshops. Project results will be disseminated via outreach activities, publications, presentations, and social media. This award is funded by the Global Centers program, an innovative program that supports use-inspired research addressing global challenges related to climate change and/or clean energy. Track 2 design awards support U.S.-based researchers to bring together international teams to develop research questions and partnerships, conduct landscape analyses, synthesize data, and/or build multi-stakeholder networks to advance their use-inspired research at larger scale in the future.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.