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While agriculture trade negotiators worldwide are fixed on the end of 2007 for most of their pressing deadlines, those in the food and agricultural technology industry are looking further into the future. Some industry experts believe that by 2040 the world’s food supply will no longer rely on conventional agriculture, but instead be produced on a molecular level through nanotechnology.
A 300-page study carried out by the science and technology firm Helmut Kaiser Consultancy, also known as ‘hkc22.com’, argues that food consumption will change dramatically over the next 20 years in conjunction with increasing water shortage problems, shifting energy use, climate change, population growth, and escalating food crises. The result, they claim, will be a move away from conventionally produced food to the “common use of nanoproduced food.” This will involve manipulating molecular matter to create tailor-made structures that will have the same, if not improved, properties, characteristics, nutritional value, and tastes of their more natural counterparts. Manipulation will take place in all parts of the food chain, from the production of improved crop varieties, to field practices, to food industry applications, to consumption.
Hkc22.com argues that nanoproduced food will circumvent the problems that limited resources and changing weather will have on agricultural production. It will also have other spillover effects on agriculture, such as reduced need for pesticides and improved plant and animal breeding. As stated in the firm’s press release, “Nanotechnology will transform the entire food industry in the next 20 years.”
On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO), recently held a conference on organic agriculture and food security, and released a report highlighting opportunities in this area. The report encourages governments to support initiatives that would “allocate resources for organic agriculture and integrate its objectives and actions within their national agricultural development and poverty reduction strategies.”
The study lays out models for implementing organic production policies that the author believes would secure global food supplies, manage biodiversity, boost labour demands, increase cost-effectiveness, and intensify farmer outputs and revenues, all within a sustainable, environmentally-friendly framework. “The strongest feature of organic agriculture is its reliance on fossil-fuel independent and locally-available production assets; working with natural processes increases cost-effectiveness and resilience of agro-ecosystems to climatic stress,” the paper says.
While both reports agree that policy, research, and paradigms must shift in relation to changing production circumstances and global food demands, their approach is quite evidently different. It remains to be seen whether nanotechnology or organic production will reign.
Additional information
The report on nanotechnology is available at http://www.hkc22.com/nanofood2040.html
The background documents for the “International Conference on Organic Agriculture and Food Security” are available at http://www.fao.org/organicag/ofs/docs_en.htm
ICTSD reporting; “Meeting the food security challenge through organic agriculture,” FAO NEWSROOM, 3 May 2007; “Climate Change and Nanotechnology Drive Food Industry Transformation Worldwide,” HELMUT KAISER CONSULTANCY, 2 May 2007.
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