WHAT DOES THE WORLD WANT TO EAT?

Interconnected crises

The world is facing a range of crises. Sir Gordon Conway, Chief Scientific Adviser of DFID, showed in his presentation how these crises are handled and also how they are increasingly interconnected. “The problem is that we only half understand them and we know only half how to manage them.”

In a way these crises are like an English cottage loaf, with a small bit at the top and a larger part at the bottom. Indeed, we focus almost solely on the immediate crisis at the top, while we tend to forget the underlying crisis.

Pork and supermarkets

The OECD has constructed an outlook that offers valuable insights in the main dynamics of the food system for the coming years. Frank van Tongeren, Senior economist for the OECD, presented the outcomes and showed how supermarkets and Chinese pork consumption may come to dictate the food system in the long run.

As East Asia becomes the consumer centre of the world, Latin America is going to be the key area for biomass production, be it for food, feed, fibre or fuel. In his fifteen year outlook of dealing with limited natural resources in Brazil and other big food exporting countries, Roberto Smeraldi stated that Latin America could contribute to feed the growing global demand for a while, but actual costs might be high, if we include key externalities.

Technology helps to shape the future of the world food system, but not alone!

New technologies have made it possible for agriculture to keep pace with the tremendous increase in world population that has more than tripled over the course of the twentieth century, and technology is once again expected to provide solutions for the challenges that lie ahead of us. In this context, Jochen Weiss, professor in food nanotechnology at the University of Hohenheim in Frankfurt, gave his perspective on the impact of new technology applications - such as nanotechnology and biotechnology - on food supply over the course of the next fifteen years.

ICT leads to new ways of thinking

“Developments in information and communication technology (ICT) have not only deeply influenced business, but have had a significant impact on our daily lives”, affirms Kaisa Kautto-Koivula, Managing Director for Mind Gardenia Ltd. and former futurologist with Nokia Corporation. Indeed, this technology has opened a very large window of opportunity for both economy and society, bringing with it new ways of working and thinking. For Kautto-Koivula, ICT development will bring profound change to the food industry, where “the pace of change is extremely rapid and expectations are high.”