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Expanding populations and increasing incomes are main drivers of the need to double global food and fuel production by 2050, while halving greenhouse gas emissions. Demand is surging but supplies struggle to keep up as markets are volatile and there are limited supplies of land and water - is it possible? This was the question that attracted 375 leaders of agribusinesses from 44 countries to the Agri Vision 2009 conference organised by Nutreco. The conference was preceded by Innovision, a day in which world-leading agriculture and food scientists discussed the potential to increase food production.Agri Vision 2009 took place at Noordwijk aan Zee in the Netherlands from 16 to 18 June and was organised by Nutreco in association with Rabobank. Delegates heard from 20 top business managers and agricultural scientists on topics ranging from stimulating innovation and the potential to make farming more productive to consumer attitudes, the challenges of prediction in complex systems and the importance of scenario planning in preparing for possible futures.
"Will we be able to feed and fuel the world in 2050?"
Responding to the question, "Will we be able to feed and fuel the world in 2050?", having heard the evidence, the great majority of delegates answered "Yes". Current knowledge and technology can increase productivity substantially and targeted research can boost it further. The major challenges lie in political decision making and in guiding investments and know how to those places and people where they will have the greatest benefit in raising food production.
- "There is a huge potential to increase global food production because the standard of most agriculture is low," said André Faaij, of the Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development at the University of Utrecht. He added that by investing in agriculture and livestock production in less developed regions the world could produce food for 40 billion people by 2050.
- However, Jason Clay, Senior Vice President Market Transformation at WWF, warned, "We must freeze the footprint of agriculture. If it continues to expand at the current rate there will be no wildlife left by 2050." This, he said, meant we cannot ignore any means for increasing productivity. "Management of genetics, for example, can make a major contribution." He agreed that raising efficiency among the least efficient producers would be an important start, reducing the waste of resources and environmental impact while doubling the output of calories per hectare.
- Chief Strategist, Shell International B.V., Karl Rose said that Shell uses scenario planning to think through potential futures in a structured way. "Agribusiness executives," he said, "need to think today about the impact of long term factors such as climate change, water supplies, competing demands for crops and the emerging technologies."
- Sipko Schat, Executive Board Member Rabobank Nederland and Vice Chairman Rabobank International spoke about the bank's study on the impact of the financial crisis on agribusiness. "Although the outlook for 2009 is not good, and the effects will linger into 2010, the upside is that agriculture and food are more resilient as people still need to eat."
- Matt van der Poel of Fresh Forward told delegates that this is a good time to introduce innovations to consumers. Analysing anxiety-confidence waves in society over the past sixty years indicates society is currently becoming more confident and ready to accept new concepts.
- Professor David Hughes of Imperial College, London, cautioned that, "The green bar is rising." Suppliers must pay attention to food safety, animal welfare, environmental integrity and ethical values. This is not in order to gain a premium but as a licence to operate.
Innovision highlights short and long term potential for animal nutrition
Animal nutrition can gain important knowledge from new science disciplines being rapidly developed by the pharmaceutical and food industries to identify the relationships of nutrition, the microbial population of the intestine and genetics. The benefits to agriculture from this work will be in the mid to long term. Secondly, there are substantial gains to be won in the near future from adapting and applying technologies already available. Examples include faster and more accurate analysis of conventional and new feed raw materials, breeding technology and more precise farm management.
These were the key conclusions from the Innovision meeting set up by Nutreco in advance of the Agri Vision conference. Innovision brought together leading agriculture and food scientists from four continents - Europe, Africa, North America and Asia. Their discussions explored and shared current progress in a wide range of scientific disciplines that relate to animal nutrition. For example, current developments in fermentation technology are creating new opportunities with functional feed ingredients that support animal health and final product quality. Further topics ran from the assessment of the many new raw materials coming from advancing food and fuel technologies to the mathematics of complex modelling and nutrigenomics - the impact of nutritional ingredients on the expression of individual genes. Increased understanding of the way in which nutrition can regulate gene expression will contribute to efficiency, animal health and welfare and to reducing environmental impact. Nutrigenomics can, therefore, help producers operate above the 'green bar' referred to by Professor Hughes.
A third conclusion at Innovision was that interdisciplinary cooperation among the sciences is increasingly important in identifying the many potential animal nutrition benefits available in the rapidly expanding knowledge base. Bioinformatics, the technology to extract meaningful information from a vast shared database, will play a central role in making this a practical possibility.
Full of optimism
Agri Vision 2009 was the 12th multi-stakeholder conference organised by Nutreco. Alternating with the Agri Vision conference in the Netherlands, Nutreco organises the biennial AquaVision conference in Norway for top aquaculture and food business executives. Agri Vision and AquaVision provide a neutral forum for debate and their doors are open to all stakeholders in the feed-to-food value chains, whether they are associated with feed raw materials, feed production, farming, retailing, food service, regulations or as non-governmental organisations with a keen interest in the environment. The result is consistently well-informed discussions reflecting a wide range of opinions.
All participants at Agri Vision 2009 were made fully aware of the enormous challenge of feeding nine billion people in 2050 in a sustainable way. Equally, the presentations made them aware that this is achievable and gave them sufficient insights to leave for home full of optimism and ready to plan their role in that future.
http://www.nutreco.com/?option=hugin&Itemid=527&task=view&id=1324585
