Resilient Island

Resilient Island

Schiedam, Netherlands

Mentor, strategic Advisor and shareholder

Develop and implement strategic policy for company development, impact and success.

Resilient Island enables farmers in the Small Island Developing States to produce sustainable vegetables locally, consequently reducing food import and unsustainable packaging, and improving food security.

More than 50% of such countries import over 80% of their food with a large CO 2  footprint due to airfreight and cooling facilities for perishable fruit and vegetables. Moreover, these islands are subject to high price fluctuations and spoilage due to the long food chain. The unsustainable and import-based development of such states causes malnutrition problems among local communities and the rapid growth of tourism in recent decades only emphasizes the need for regenerative self-reliance in terms of food production.

The Food Resiliency through Smart Horticulture (FR&SH) concept has been developed by Resilient Island in response to the above-mentioned problems. This proposition offers:

– a solution for sustainable and circular food production;

– a boost to the local economy and knowledge by creating jobs and setting up an education center;

– a closed cycle for energy and fresh drinking water production.

This comprehensive development project brings direct impact in 9 SDGs’ areas.

FR&SH is a scalable concept and collaborates with experienced partners from Europe in the fields of horticulture project design, horticulture automation, solar power systems, energy storage and freshwater solutions. Kickstarting on the Maldivian Island Ekasdhoo, Resilient Island has the active support of the Maldivian government and a large local trade conglomerate.

All together, they all strive for one goal – creating a self-reliant and circular food system for the Maldives on the island of Ekasdhoo. Furthermore, it will be used in the future as a blueprint for next projects undertaken with other SIDS; 6 additional projects are planned to be launched in the next 14 years – another one in Maldives and 5 in other SIDS.