Photogenics

Agriculture is the engine room of humanity. Access to staple foods, and to the nutrition and medicine that supports healthy and prosperous lives is driven by our ability to grow crops. Humanity urgently requires another agricultural revolution, one which can feed billions of mouths without destroying the resources of our finite planet.

This will require – as it did in the 1950s and 60s – the use of new technologies, but this time, limits to growth are apparent, resources are constrained and agriculture’s future will depend on the invention of new tools which can meet the existential challenges of sustainability. Not only do we need to produce more food from fewer resources, but we must actively shrink our carbon footprint in the process. Those who innovate in agtech have developed new multiple new technological paradigms in the last few decades, such as genetic modification, rapid breeding techniques, precision agriculture, and biologics. But, it can be argued that a number of ag innovations simply offer incremental change within a business-as-usual framework, and may not move the needle quick enough to meet humanity’s pressing challenges.