Cardano Food Forest - Permaculture.

[IMPACT]

To solve the problem highlighted, we've come up with an expansive, long-term project to address multiple things while also creating a permanent, sustainable & resilient society.

Overview

We propose designing and building a massive "Food-Forest" spread over one square kilometre, with regenerative agricultural techniques and practices that can, among other things, feed an entire community of sustainability enthusiasts. The "Cardano Food Forest" & the community that builds it will enjoy a circular economy with blockchain-based governance, land asset tokenization, & labour tokenization.

What:

The "Cardano Food Forest" will be entirely based on an economy driven by its primary token "ADA" and use all Cardano based Blockchain solutions to manage the entire operations, including blockchain-based food traceability.

It will be a central hub for free and decentralized education and experience for anyone who would like to adopt sustainable, regenerative techniques in their practice. Honest Farm work in exchange for food, bed, education and community for all: The future of decentralized farming/living.

Where:

The nearly one sqkm of land selected for this project is owned among other share-holders by one of our co-proposers: "Mr Surya", who, as the representative of the "Land Bank Trust" has offered to transform it into the "Cardano Food Forest." 

The land is nestled among the Western Ghats and is central to many main cities in south India. It has stellar accessibility by being less than an hour from the nearest railway station & airport and only a little more than twice that distance from two essential ports on either side (East and West). It also comes along a proposed "food processing corridor" by the government, furthering the future impact of blockchain solutions in that sector due to our influence and proximity to it.

Present Plan :*

For our proposal this fund, we aim to start small, slow and steady: generate an expansive design for the entire project while physically transforming 10% of our landholding into a sustainable food forest. This includes and is not limited to establishing a shelter to stay and cook for at least ten volunteers & experts to start the metamorphosis of the sustainable food forest. 

The land development will include multiple elements that promote long-term sustainability, such as:

The design process starts with an in-depth sector analysis for the selected property to study and design for unpredictable energies that include sun, wind, rain, flood zones, fire danger, noise, chemical pollution from neighbouring sites, unpleasant views, pleasant views, wildlife areas, and so on.

Sector-analysis is followed by a detailed Permaculture Design for our project that includes Zone Planning to establish the community by considering Settlement zones, Fruit forests, native tree placement, catchment zones, vegetation areas, grazing areas and pastures to contain livestock, community areas, crop zones, etc.

Interesting elements included in the design are; herb spirals, beekeeping zones, mushroom cultivation, free-range poultry, community kitchen gardens, processing centres to produce fresh, reliable products and many more exciting community-driven initiatives.

The design phase is followed by executing Permanent Earthworks in the form of swales, rainwater-catchment zones, ponds and check-dams to ensure sustainable water supply and stability.

Earthworks lay the foundation for future plantation and farm activities to conclude the project over a slow, long-term duration.

Over the subsequent 10 Funds, we aim to take this further towards our eventual plan:

Future Plan:

As we build the "Cardano food forest", every acre, every volunteer, every expert will add immeasurable value towards solving the "problem statement" mentioned. The land will grow from a sustainable farm run by a few volunteers into a large food forest backed by a thriving community of sustainability enthusiasts with a social structure to guide humanity to a balanced future. This project will be open-sourced and will hold the potential to be replicated throughout the world to form many such open, decentralized communities. Once complete; the "Cardano Food-Forest" will have its governance structure, the land will be tokenized, we also will localize raw food, any produce leaving the farm will have extensive food traceability with in-house processing and labelling (i.e. only processed food leaves the farm, raw food stays inside to ensure abundance and sustainability)

The technology required to enable the transformation of the project from a farm development initiative to one of interest to the Cardano community will start with:

Tokenizing land assets:

By individually allotting each square meter of the proposed land into Dynamic NFTs, we can assign crop harvest details to these NFTs, which can then be used in the future to build a food traceability Dapp by KONMA.

Phase II: Community members can purchase these NFTs to take part in the decision making of the crop-to-be-planted and also gain incentives from the farming process on the said piece of land.

P.S. These NFTs will not provide any ownership of the land used as it is legally challenging to achieve this with the current legislation.

After successfully establishing a system for food traceability using these NFTs, we would like to build on-site crop production and monetize the processed product to encourage the farm economy. This will be followed by a decentralized governance model for the community and a token-based reward system for its members.

Once the model is complete, we can open-source the structure and design to encourage more such communities and food forests worldwide to improve global sustainability and build a better future.

*The scope of this proposal only includes what we have mentioned in the "Present Plan" section. We plan to bring the Cardano food forest to the "Project Catalyst" sector-wise and develop the project over the following ten funds.

The project will simplify the challenge of bringing blockchain integration to the grassroots level. We can achieve this by building a thriving community of sustainability enthusiasts that enjoy a decentralized economy, decentralized food, decentralized power, decentralized education, and a decentralized society that is deeply in sync with ancient agricultural practices and future technologies.

The crypto-ecological system that can emerge from integrating these systems will be one of our most substantial contributions to the planet. As we build systems that will transform community governance, land tokenization, labour rewards tokens, food traceability, and so on, the community will blend those resources by creating complementary systems that regenerate local eco-systems/communities and nature itself.

As we blend further, we will naturally tend towards balance, with less dependence on zero-sum economic activities that ignore their adverse effects on our society, local wildlife and nature preservation.

The scale of the project demands a hefty investment in terms of time, knowledge, resources and funds to execute entirely. This has made us take a sector-wise approach to land development, focusing on community building from the first fund to drive its growth and development sustainably as we move forward.

Another risk we foresee is the slim but possible chance of not being funded in the future catalyst funds to continue our land development over the expansive one square kilometre of land area under our guardianship. We can address this by changing our timeline for completion and monetizing our farm activities effectively to drive progress.

[FEASIBILITY]

We will take a sector-wise approach to land development and apply Permaculture Principles and regenerative practices. This fund will focus on transforming 10% of our landholdings. The design and development will take place in the following pattern:

Week 1-4: Permaculture Land Design, Refinement and Finalizing.

Week 5-7: Earthworks to install Rainwater catchment zones, ponds and check-dams.

Week 8-9: Soil Preparation and Irrigation Planning.

Week 10-12: Plantation of fruit trees, perennials, nitrogen-fixing trees, native varieties, and mulch producing trees throughout the selected sector.

The budget is aligned towards a professional estimation of Permaculture work on the proposed land, with a nominal fee of just 495 USD for every 1000 sqm of land work, including design, earthworks, plantation, labour, accommodation, food and maintenance of the land during the said period. 

This fund focuses on an 80,000 sqm parcel of land as our first sector for development, bringing the immediate project cost up to 39,600 USD with the remaining 400 USD to spare for miscellaneous expenses.

With over a decade of experience in designing regenerative agriculture systems and establishing food forests in the southwestern region of India, the "Cardano Food Forest" will be our largest project yet.

Permaculture Expert: Azlan Mohammed Shakib

(99+) Azlan Mohammed Shakib | LinkedIn

Blockchain Expert: Vinay Deva & Sangeet M (KONMA Org)

(99+) Vinay Devabhaktuni | LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sangeet-muralidhar/

https://linktr.ee/konma

Team of Permaculture Experts:

Nazia Ansari (Landscape Architect & Permaculture Expert)

(99+) Nazia Ansari | LinkedIn

Anirudh Thekke (Permaculturist)

(99+) Anirudh Thekke | LinkedIn

The Team will also include 10 Volunteers currently undergoing Permaculture Training to live on-site until the first sector completes.

[AUDITABILITY]

We can measure the project progress along three definitive milestones:

1. Permaculture Desing Completion
2. Land Preparation and Earthworks
3. Finishing plantation throughout the chosen sector

Success for this project will allow us to witness the following benefits:

Food Traceability along the entire chain 

Free & sustainable education on-site

volunteering opportunities for farm work

We are growing a Sustainable food forest with over 100+ varieties of Fruit, vegetables and livestock.

We are nurturing a team of volunteers living sustainably with off-grid power, water, food and a beautifully designed community of changemakers that mark the beginning of a new era.

Witnessing a farm that resembles a Smart Contract where the eco-system and the rules of nature are the lines of code, and any input in seed, water, or nutrients immediately executes the "Natural contract" to give us output in terms of Fruit, nature and beautiful, sustainable systems.

This is a new proposal for Fund 8.

SDG Rating

SDG goals:

Goal 2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture

Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

Goal 6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all

Goal 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

Goal 14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development

SDG subgoals:

11.3 By 2030, enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanization and capacity for participatory, integrated and sustainable human settlement planning and management in all countries

2.1 By 2030, end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round

2.2 By 2030, end all forms of malnutrition, including achieving, by 2025, the internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age, and address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women and older persons

2.3 By 2030, double the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, in particular women, indigenous peoples, family farmers, pastoralists and fishers, including through secure and equal access to land, other productive resources and inputs, knowledge, financial services, markets and opportunities for value addition and non-farm employment

2.4 By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters and that progressively improve land and soil quality

2.5 By 2020, maintain the genetic diversity of seeds, cultivated plants and farmed and domesticated animals and their related wild species, including through soundly managed and diversified seed and plant banks at the national, regional and international levels, and promote access to and fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge, as internationally agreed

2.a Increase investment, including through enhanced international cooperation, in rural infrastructure, agricultural research and extension services, technology development and plant and livestock gene banks in order to enhance agricultural productive capacity in developing countries, in particular least developed countries

2.b Correct and prevent trade restrictions and distortions in world agricultural markets, including through the parallel elimination of all forms of agricultural export subsidies and all export measures with equivalent effect, in accordance with the mandate of the Doha Development Round

Key Performance Indicator (KPI):

2.4.1 Proportion of agricultural area under productive and sustainable agriculture

11.3.2 Proportion of cities with a direct participation structure of civil society in urban planning and management that operate regularly and democratically

2.1.2 Prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in the population, based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES)

2.3.2 Average income of small-scale food producers, by sex and indigenous status

2.5.1 Number of (a) plant and (b) animal genetic resources for food and agriculture secured in either medium- or long-term conservation facilities

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