Functional Integration of Renewable Energy and Food Production Systems for the Mediterranean Countires

Policy makers involved in sustainability of rural development, food security and poverty are trying to tackle two main global issues, namely food production and renewable energy production. While the availability of sufficient and nutritious food has always been recognized as a fundamental need for humans, only recently policy makers have included in their policy focus the availability of sufficient and affordable energy in relation to poverty (FAO 2010). Food production and land availability for rural economy is being threatened by the worldwide implementation of policies that promote the production, commercialization and use of renewable energies, thereby affecting the destination of rural land. The EU is attempting to limit the possible negative effects of biofuels production on food availability and price with specific legislation efforts, but there are still concerns about the implications of industrialized renewable energy production systems for rural resources utilization. For example, commercially available industrial plants for the production of bioethanol, require at least several hundred thousand tons of dry biomass, which translate into tens of thousands hectares of arable land. The figure gets even worse in the case of bio-diesel production. However, since countries on both sides of the Mediterranean Sea share the production of both sustainable and secure food as a primary objective of their respective political agenda, they could implement common or similar policies and technological solutions to overcome the potential conflict between food and energy production. For example, they could foster the functional integration of food and energy production in rural land, by implementing policies that favor the production of renewable energy from different sources, its local utilization, and its commercialization via smart grids. On the other hand, science and technology should provide reliable solutions for the functional integration of renewable energy production systems in food production systems. Our multidisciplinary team composed of public and private company scientists and engineer, is currently working on advanced technological photovoltaic cells, which would in theory be functionally integrated in closed greenhouses to produce renewable energy and nutritious food in any land and environment condition. A key aspect of this system would be the high productivity of food with the minimal utilization of land and particularly water, which makes it suitable especially for environment with arid land and high solar light availability.