WE ARE ADDRESSING:
- top-level decision makers in charge of managing food security at country level
- developers of large scale farming projects, in any country
OUR SERVICE CENTERS ON:
- design and structure food security strategies in desert countries
- comparing, selecting and managing alternative farming ventures, all over the world
OUR SERVICE ENGAGES OUR PROPRIETARY TOOL-SET:
- which we use when providing our service
- or, alternatively, which you can license
OUR TOOL-SET CONSISTS OF 3 PARTS:
- PART I - THE BOOK: provides unknown facts about water (cost per unit, availability, rain farming vs. irrigation farming and much more), under-reported facts about food security, hidden facts about climate change.
- PART II - WATER MAX: you input your country data, we compute how to best achieve optimal food security (% self-grown, % imported, % produced abroad).
- PART III - FINANCIAL FARM MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE: if you plan to get into farming, start with the most complete planning and reporting tool available today.
PART I: THE BOOK
1 CUBIC KILOMETER OF WATER - MANAGING FOOD SECURITY IN DESERT COUNTRIES is a groundbreaking, 100 page book, that details the fundamental issues of food security in desert environments. By introducing and strictly following the concept of the cubic kilometer of water, the complexity of providing food security, through food imports, domestic and foreign agricultural production is woven into a comprehensive, visually understandable, cohesive new school of thought.
For those readers with limited time, the key elements of the book are colour-highlighted to shorten reading time to approx. 1 hour.
PART II: WATER MAX – THE ECONOMETRIC MODEL
As food-security is a complex undertaking that can not be handled "intuitively", we developed WATER MAX - THE ECONOMETRIC MODEL, a software tool that allows to optimize water allocation nationally by showing which agricultural products should be given priority over others, and from what point farming should stop altogether. The main input parameters on the client's side are:
· population (million)
· domestically available groundwater, in km³
· depth of the different water tables (m)
· desalination capacity (km³)
· cost of desalination (US$/m³)
· river water: cost and availability
· opportunity cost of fuel (US$/barrel)
Water Max, in ascending order, calculates the quantities and costs of the different types of water available, expressed in multiples or fractions of a km³ of water. In descending order, yield and revenue of agricultural crops grown with these specific waters are identified, and equally expressed in multiples or fractions of one km³ of water.
The intersection of these 2 step functions represents the optimum use of available water in any given country. Scenarios can be geared to prioritize water productivity, profitability, national expenditures for food, number of jobs created etc. As a result, the model clearly defines
· which products should be homegrown
· which should be imported
· and which are best self-produced in other countries
PART III: FARM MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE
The FARM MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE is a preformatted FINANCIAL STATEMENT template (MS Excel) for large irrigated farms: although farming comes with its own, specific complexities, a farm should be run using transparent financial statement formats like any other commercial activity. To achieve this, the Operating Guide includes a ready-to-go, detailed spread sheet for large scale crop farms in MS Excel. This software translates all elements of the farming operation into a financial statement, cash flow analysis and performance indicators (e.g. best options in terms of return on investment, water productivity, required investment etc.). The FARM MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE is a perfect Farm Management tool that satisfies the needs of farm managers, investors and auditors, all in one.
TRAINING
To allow for the best use of the 3 blocks of the Operating Guide, a 2-day training unit is offered to be held at client's site, during which
- a draft version of a national food security strategy will be developed
- a draft version of a business plan for a large scale farm will be developed
The draft versions will provide an accuracy level of 80-90%, which will require a further in-depth exploration to come close to an accuracy of 100%.