As scientists learn more about the extent of the climate crisis, it becomes clearer how much the agricultural system is at risk of collapse. Shifting climate patterns, rising global temperatures, and worsening pollution have a huge effect on how more than 8 billion people grow and obtain their food. Despite being the largest economy in the world, around one in eight US households struggle with food insecurity and climate change is predicted to make this worse.
The food needs of the U.S. population, which grew by 0.5% in 2023 to 334.9 million, continue to rise. Most conventional agricultural practices are not sustainable, and they put immense pressure on the planet's resources. Thus, there is an increasing need to harness next-generation agricultural technology (agritech) to ensure that everyone has access to adequate and nutritious food.
Avid Solutions Intl is a precision agriculture R&D firm and social enterprise that manages data and produces management zones for practically any field operation, including soil sampling, seeding, fertilizing, irrigation, herbicides, and fungicide spraying. The company's team includes experts in both agriculture and AI, and it seeks to incorporate AI into agriculture technology to optimize resource allocation. Avid Solutions Intl travels to various farms, installing solar wells and other sustainable technologies, as well as ensuring that farmers receive the green energy credits and have access to government funding programs that they are eligible for.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has numerous programs, across almost 30 component entities, that work with small and medium businesses as contractors, and Avid Solutions Intl helps link these businesses with the USDA. Avid currently works with more than 10 farms. This includes a major project in Dekalb, Fulton, and Clayton Counties, Georgia, where it is purchasing and rezoning land for urban agriculture, with a goal to create an agribusiness hub coupled with blue zones – where people's lifespans are longer than average and quality of life is better.
The technologies Avid Solutions Intl is working on explore the possibility of establishing a self-sustaining agricultural system in space and in other hostile environments that traditionally can't be used for agriculture. This reduces the pressure on Earth's resources, as well as lays the foundation for future space exploration missions.
Aside from developing and implementing advanced agricultural technologies for sustainable and efficient food production in space environments, Avid Solutions Intl also provides technical writing and documentation services to document the technology and systems used in sustainable agriculture initiatives, as well as testing and simulation services to validate the technology and systems before deployment.
Avid Solutions Intl was founded by its CEO, Dr. Malcolm Adams, also known as The Purposeful Economist. Coming from a disadvantaged background, Dr. Adams works at the intersection of economics, technology, and entrepreneurship to empower people, especially minorities, to escape financial hardship.
"While farmers are in a tough place right now, the future should look greener thanks to the science we are harnessing in our R&D initiatives, particularly in the areas of renewable energy, carbon sequestration, and soil regeneration." Dr. Adams says. "Our mission is to plant trees whose shade we will never sit in. One of the biggest issues today is that people who have made it are pulling the ladder up behind them. We want to challenge that by empowering the people in our local communities, and we believe that the only way to ensure continued scaling and growth is to do business that takes care of the community, allowing both the business and its customer base to prosper."
