WE GROW
A cryptourbanomics approach for agricultural production within cities.

POSTULATION
Blockchain technology enables us to improve and enhance city policies infrastructure.

The We Grow project focuses on the use of Blockchain technology to establish a system that empowers Barcelona to grow its own agricultural produce  to meet the consumption. The We Grow blockchain system works towards ensuring that the total production of yield tries to meet the demand within Barcelona, enhancing productivity & efficiency and minimizing wastage. This is achieved imagining food production as a civic amenity, where every citizen of Barcelona is eligible to receive certified agricultural yield. This is implemented by the city using buffer spaces on the outskirts along the highways as agricultural lands. Holistically speaking, the We Grow blockchain system ensures food security, transparency and accountability of yield, creating spatial interventions for food production to meet the consumption requirements of Barcelona.

PROBLEM STATEMENT
Map (A) indicates the distribution of agricultural lands across the planet.
Map (B) indicates the consumption of agricultural produce in the world.

We infer that there is a clear dissociation between where food is grown and where it is being consumed. This has several impact on our physical economy, as realized by the world during the supply chain breakdown post the covid-19 outbreak. This leads us to formulate our research question: CAN WE MAKE CITIES THAT HAVE A PRODUCTION SYSTEM TO FEED ITSELF?

METHODOLOGY

The We Grow Blockchain system is imagined to be a civic amenity initiated by the municipality of Barcelona which operates via a peoples cooperative regulated by a DAO. The municipality helps the We Grow cooperative to precure pasture lands located within buffer zones along the highways coming into the city for the sole purpose of agricultural production. The Proprietors of the land (Departamento de Infraestructura y Transporte, Municipality of Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Municipality of Sant Boi de Llobregat ) transfers ownership of the land to the We Grow cooperative under explicit regulations monitored by a DAO and reported to the municipality.

All interested citizens and agricultural enterprises are welcomed to join the cooperative, users register on the platform by setting up their digital wallets which creates a unique identity token for them. Upon being verified, all members become eligible to access certified quality agricultural yield which they can precure through the We Grow dashboard. Registered Agricultural enterprises can also regulate their individual agriculture demands through the dashboard.

CRYPTO URBANOMICS MODEL

IDENTITY TOKENS

The we grow cooperative would issue identity tokens to all its members and would serve as the organization that validates tokens each time it receives claims for produce.

SPATIAL IMPLICATIONS

The buffer lands on the outskirts of the city of Barcelona under the ownership of the We Grow cooperative are used for Agricultural production for the city. The system uses otherwise non productive land and justifies its purpose for agricultural purposes. The regulations for land use is monetized by the DAO. For distribution each barrio in Barcelona has a specific market which is responsible for selling these products to the consumers. Distribution centers enhances logistical efficiency, regulates surplus and minimizes wastage.

WEGROW WEBSITE AND DASHBOARD

As part of the project to promote the project to actual farmers and suppliers, we created a website for the project in the real world which contain: the main platform (that users interact with and make collaboration which acts as also communication platform to make the transparency and trust), project description, maps, programs, involvement, contacts, live chat among others. The We Grow cooperative is responsible for regulation of agricultural production by ensuring quality certification of various yields, monitoring of product processing, maintaining real-time evaluation of all farming, and ensures transparency in distribution/supply chain whilst synchronizing consumption patterns through data management. The We Grow cooperative functions as a rewards platform to help increase their engagement and loyalty for all users. 

ACTUAL CHAIN: BACKEND

The actual chain happens through Ethereum testnet rinkeby. And uses custom tokens (currently name IAAC main, IAAC utility, and IAAC asset tokens). The transactions happen through mostly metamask for different users. The figure above shows the metamask wallet used for founding the project.

ACTUAL SAFE (GNOSIS)

Safe for this project is a custodian tool to help registered citizens and Agricultural enterprises that deposit the money from the transactions and keep it until the produce is received. It is in the beta version containing 2 signatories the We Grow cooperative and the user to approve the quality of services and it is based on the contracts.

ACTUAL DAO (ARAGON)

We make use of Aragon DAO, which in this case we used ‘Open Enterprise’ in type to have all of the features for a needed DAO. Decentralized Autonomous Organization is the type of organization that Monitors all transactions and governs all actions taken by all sides, it is  responsible for and the way for hiring/recruiting citizens who help with the production. It is also the authority on approvals related to sale and purchase of agricultural products, daily operations that include production , processing, distribution & consumption and the establishment and monitoring of the rules and regulations.

ACTUAL ETHERSCAN INVOICES

As you see above the invoices and hash track of transaction has been settled on Ethereum Network.

We Grow is a project of IAAC, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia developed in the Master in City & Technology 2021/22 by Students: Yohan Wadia, Parshav Sheth and Faculty: Lluisa Marsal