Food Security Living Lab

We’re excited to introduce the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar Food Security Living Lab as part of a larger Installation Resilience strategy! The Food Security Living Lab takes a holistic and interconnected ecosystem approach to encompass other aspects of installation resilience, such as energy and water resilience, soil health, supply independence, as well as human impacts.
 
Experimental in its approach, the Food Security Living Lab seeks to identify agricultural technologies and adopt best practices to support an islanded installation in response

to threats such as climate events, and to support forward

deployed Marines and Sailors in the form of

expeditionary agriculture. 

 

By extension, the concept of expeditionary foraging is now

part of the military lexicon. The Marine Corps, in particular,

in its embrace of Force Design 2030, recognizes it must

be able to procure more dispersed, secure, and

independent resources to sustain the envisioned smaller,

more agile, and more widely distributed forces. 

​

In a recent discussion on Force Design 2030, General Eric M. Smith,

USMC, observed, "...the logistics commands of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps are still needed to support forward-deployed forces, but 'we have to blunt [the enemy] in the first few days, so, yes, we take risks to do that. … We can’t build ‘iron mountains’ [of munitions and supplies] anymore. Those days have ended.'” Read full article in Seapower here.

 

Expeditionary agriculture and foraging capabilities are needed pieces to solve this wicked puzzle.

​

The development of the Food Security Living Lab  also recognizes the challenges of the contested logistics environment, defined in Title 10 of the U.S. Code as, "... an environment in which the armed forces engage in conflict with an adversary that presents challenges in all domains and directly targets logistics operations, facilities, and activities in the United States, abroad, or in transit from one location to the other." Improving installation resiliency through creating, maintaining, and protecting critical, life-sustaining resources helps ensure survivability in a contested environment. 

​

The Food Security Living Lab is an agile research and development endeavor aboard the air station in partnership with industry, academic, and community leaders in sustainable agriculture,

agricultural technology, water security and soil health.

The initial lines of effort for the Food Security Living Lab are: Expeditionary Agriculture (agile and movable production agriculture); Natural Resource Resilience and Management (water and energy consumption); and Organic and Food Waste Management (in compliance with California Senate Bill 1383).

 

​

​