Food security goal analysis using multi-objective reasoning: Treated sewage water case study

Food security, the ability to access safe, sufficient, and healthy food, is fundamental for governments to ensure societies' healthy lifestyles and the well-being of all citizens. Food sovereignty is one of the vital requirements to achieve food security at a national level. Societies have introduced different mechanisms to increase their national food production. The use of treated sewage effluent in irrigated agriculture sector is one of the main adaptation mechanisms. Governments encourage the use of this new source by providing technical and financial support and subsidizing the price of water. However, farmers are hesitant to benefit from the subsidies as they do not have access to the required information or they come across conflicting information from different resources. These barriers prevent many farmers from using treated sewage effluent on their farms, which leads to either using desalinated water, that is expensive and energy intensive, or decreasing agriculture activities, which subsequently decrease local crops productivity and thus increase country reliance on food imports. This paper defines information requirements for farmers, based on a case study of farmers' use of treated sewage effluent in irrigated agriculture in Abu Dhabi. The multi-objective reasoning with constrained goal models was used to define constraints and optimization goals over multiple objective functions, refinements and their numerical contributes. Several interviews were conducted, with those who have used treated sewage effluents for irrigation, to validate the generated model, and help in defining how farmers can also contribute to defining information needs to maximize the use of treated sewage effluent in agriculture.