Urban Agriculture 5.0: An Exploratory Approach to the Food System in a Super Smart Society

Abstract

Society 5.0 aims to promote quality of life and well-being of citizens, reducing inequalities and promoting sustainability with the support of technologies 4.0. Therefore, redesigning value chains to bring social, economic, and environmental gains becomes of particular interest in alignment with a new model of a people-centric super-smart society. This paper aimed to outline a conceptual design of urban agriculture (UA) 5.0 by applying a three-phase methodology supported by data triangulation. A relationship between Industry 4.0, food system, and sustainable society was identified, encompassing many points of convergence between UA and Industry 4.0 (35) as well as Society 5.0 (43). As a result, this paper proposed UA 5.0 as a multifaceted concept that brings a new paradigm for systemic agriculture integrated in cities, considering six key dimensions for its development (spatial, social, technological, economic, sustainability, and systems integration). This exploratory study contributes to in-depth discussions, and new strategies among policy makers for building a more resilient urban food system as an embedded solution in smart cities. The results discussed also outline a basis for developing super smart food system industries by exploring each of the dimensions proposed in this paper.