Background Agricultural Connections
Journey 2050 takes students on a virtual simulation that explores world food sustainability and answers the question, "How will we sustainably feed nearly 10 billion people by the year 2050?" The lesson plans and online simulation program allows students to make decisions on a virtual farm and witness their impact on society, the environment and the economy at a local and global scale. The lessons engage students with the important concepts regarding sustainable agriculture. The online simulation contextualizes these concepts as students experience the lives of real farm families across the world. As students interact with each family, they learn the role of best management practices in feeding the world, reducing environmental impacts, and improving social performance through greater access to education, medical care and community infrastructure. These lessons can be taught individually or as an entire unit. See the links below for the remaining lessons: 
Earning money and creating jobs is the foundation for an economy, and a healthy economy is critical to sustainability. It provides the money needed to address the factors that limit our social and environmental sustainability. This often starts with the simple step of planting a seed that produces wealth and money. However, building wealth and not addressing social and environmental limitations is not sustainable. All the money in the world will not sustain our future generations if we don’t protect our soil, water and air.
The engine of an economy is the marketplace where buyers and sellers meet to trade products and services. This could be a physical place like a mall or a virtual hub like a website. Marketplaces exist both in the local community and globally as goods from one country are sold on the other side of the world. For example, the global food market allows you to buy tea in Canada that’s grown in India and fruits and vegetables even when they’re out of season.
- When farmers have a good crop, they can use it to feed their family.
- If they have extra food, they can sell it at the market.
- The profits made from sales can be spent to improve the farm and in the local community to buy more goods. These purchases then support local business which employs people in the local community, generating wider benefits.
- As profits grow, people and families throughout the community are able to access more jobs and earn higher incomes.
- This cycle leads to investment in local infrastructure, such as schools, hospitals, housing and roads.
- Investments in infrastructure can create opportunities for further economic growth. For example, improving roads can help truckers deliver goods faster, enabling the distribution of products to local markets and ultimately to global markets.
- Global markets give customers access to different products and services and also allows farmers to sell their goods all around the world.
- In this way, a positive ripple effect is created that helps the farm family, their community, their country and the world.
Access to the internet and cell phone technology provides information and allows knowledge to be shared. Access to education leads to skilled employees. Finally, access to loans enables farmers to purchase things like fertilizers and equipment. With more income, farmers can use profits to invest in more things they need for their farms, like seeds, fertilizer, energy-efficient technology, machinery and education. They can also buy storage facilities to protect their crops from insects or to store them until the market rates are higher and the crop is worth more. Along your journey to feed the world there will be plenty of investments to choose from.
As the world population grows, we will be challenged to do more with less. To meet this challenge, we will rely on new ideas and technologies to help farmers increase revenue while addressing social and environmental limitations. Improving economic sustainability will enable farmers to access new ideas and technologies that improve agricultural practices.
These practices not only help produce more food to feed the world but they also contribute to the ripple effect, making all areas of sustainability stronger and stronger. Improving farmers’ access to local and global markets will be crucial to helping us feed the world in 2050.
