Best practices to develop smart agriculture to support food demand with the rapid urbanization trends in Latin America

摘要

One of the main problems in cities is scarce for natural resources like water, clean air, and fertile soil. Smart Cities uses Information Technology as a driver and enabler of better services towards a better quality of life citizens. With the rapid urbanization trend today, megacities need to deal in proximity to the constraint of food production to feed millions of citizens every day, reducing the carbon footprint as well as water footprint. Latin America is growing fast already with several megacities, pressing the supply of food in the surroundings of metropolitan areas. This work proposes suitable best practices to reduce the water footprint in agricultural crop fields with traditional methods. The mix of biochemistry and the internet of things helps to improve the competitiveness of agricultural economic activities near the cities and at the same time helping to avoid a water crisis. We take a case of study in Guadalajara Metropolitan Area, which is not still a Mega City but is rapidly evolving, needing innovative solutions respecting the natural environment and taking care of natural resources. We also present in the case of study a briefly successful international cooperation towards a culture development for a circular economy.