Sustainability Hub: AgTech & Sustainable Food Systems

At Impact Hub, we believe in creating a positive impact on our people and our planet through innovation. Through collaboration we can inspire the next generation of leaders to drive long-term social and environmental good. Sustainability Hub is an opportunity for the greater Santa Barbara community – entrepreneurs, small business owners, and environmentalists – to come together and talk about important sustainability topics. We enable people to take collective action and think about how they can act locally to mitigate their environmental impact.

The 2017 Sustainability Hub will focus on the agriculture industry and food systems. As our population continues to grow, we face increased environmental pressures and demand on our food supply chain. This encompasses everything from how our food is produced, distributed, processed, and consumed to waste recovery. Our current industrial agriculture model is very energy intensive: it requires tremendous inputs of water, pesticide use and monocropping degrade our soils and current processing and distribution practices contribute to air pollution. We must invest in our food systems and new technologies to find solutions that support a self-sustaining agroecosystem, which consider the economic viability for farmers and consumers, use ecologically sound agriculture practices and enhance social equity for all members of the community. AgTech startups Apeel Sciences and Montage for Ag will discuss their technologies and how they will help us to manage our limited resource more efficiently.