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impactlab_2010 02409.txt

#Future Ag Can Better Food Create Better People? Radical transformations are brewing in the worlds oldest industry Can better food create better people? Will a better food supply lead to healthier, stronger, better thinking people? This is exactly the premise that is driving many of the advances in farming today. To understand agribusiness in the future, consider a model that conveniently exists right now in the human-food interface. Metabolism is used a term to describe the various chemical reactions that take place in every cell of the body. Intermediary metabolism is a vast web of interconnected reactions by the constituent parts of the cell. Every metabolism is different. Gaining an ability to read and monitor a persons metabolic reaction to the food eaten will cause the agriculture industry to evolve with great precision around the tiny niche demands of consumers. The future of foods is smart foods. The food industry will resemble the bodys metabolism. Science will create real-time reactive sensors in our bodies that can read everything from the fluctuation of brainwaves, to micro changes in heartbeats, to gastro-digestive processes, to variations of skin perspiration rates. This constant monitoring of hundreds if not thousands of bodily nuances will bring about healthier food choices and, more importantly, choices tailored specifically to an individuals needs. The sensors will need to interface with an equally nuanced supply chain to meet the needs of this next generation, hyper-individualized consumer. In the home of 2030, a personal monitoring system will generate a grocery list based on the anticipated needs and stated desires of that individual. Food orders will then be placed either automatically or with as much control as the person desires. The order will go to the local food supplier, who will be in constant communication with regional suppliers, and they will be in constant communication with the food producers. The entire supply chain architecture will be wired to the needs of the end user. Much like the seemingly endless iterations of coffee at Starbucks, food from restaurants and fast food outlets will come in over a million variations. Customers will be able to order a 13.2 percent fat cheeseburger with 2. 7 grams of potassium and 3. 6 grams of calcium that has a hint of almond and banana flavoring on a sesame seed bun with exactly 47 sesame seeds on it. This may seem a ridiculous level of specificity. But in an automated society the process will become seamless and invisible to the end user. It will be commonplace for a person to simply order their particular cheeseburger. Medium for me, please with only one dill pickle, no lettuce and a tomato. Farmers will become expert at producing oejacked-in food stocks with countless variations, managed through computerized processes designed to manipulate the end results. Controls will be exercised along a broad spectrum from environmental conditions such as light, water, and oxygen levels in the air to genetic manipulation according to approved safety guidelines. The regulatory system for insuring ultra-safe food supplies will be monitored constantly through automated data feeds at each step of the supply chain. By 2030 a farm or ranch will adopt technologies that leave todays operations far behind. Ultra high tech farms of the future will generate exotic half-plant, half-animal vegetation as well as crystalline plants, air plants, and generic non-species plants designed for postharvest flavor and nutrient infusions. Leveraging Plant Intelligenceaside from growing food, new opportunities will emerge for oegrowing products. Our ability to manipulate produce will also enable us to manipulate plants in other ways. For instance, jacking into a tree, we will someday be able to oetrain a tree to have its branches grow into the shape of end tables, coffee tables, chairs, or rocking chairs. Once these unusual branches are fully grown, farmers can walk up to the tree and harvest the rocking chairs by cutting them down, similar to harvesting apples or cherries. Eventually we will be able to oegrow our own clothing, clothing that is intelligent, self-repairing, able to change colors to match our mood, and protective in extreme elements. The idea of growing rocks sounds farfetched at first, but apparently the idea is solid. There are many instances of rocks and rocklike material being grown in nature. Similar to growing coral in the oceans or crystals in a laboratory growing rocks may become an expansive new area of farming. Vertical Farmingthe precision we use to monitor consumer demand will translate into ultra-precise farming operations in highly controlled environments. Todays surface farming is both imprecise and subject to extreme external influences, making it less than ideal to supply the consumer marketplace of the future. Since traditional greenhouses are expensive to build and inefficient to operate, farming in the future will go vertical. Several experimental vertical farming projects like Dr. Dickson Despommiers at Columbia University are in various conceptual and experimental stages of implementation. Most designs are far to expensive to compete practically with existing ag operations. The concept of vertical farming that I envision has been framed around the idea of creating both below-surface and above-surface silos serving as vertical greenhouses for the production of food. These cylindrical shaped silos with honeycomb lined walls filled with rich top soil have the ability to convert a small surface area on land into a much larger surface area on the walls of the silos. The entire production area in these silos will be managed with a robotic arm that travels up and down a central shaft performing all necessary tasks of planting, weeding, watering, harvesting, and post harvest cleanup. The central vertical shaft will double as both an optical shaft through which sunlight will be channeled to provide natural illumination for optimal plant growth as well as the primary rail for the robotic arm. Sunshine will be collected via a solar concentrator from the aboveground portion of the silo. With water coming from an ongoing evaporation system that extracts moisture from the air, and external wind generators for power, these self-contained farming silos can be constructed in desolate climates, deserts, on rocky ground, and all of the most unforgiving places on the planet. This coupled with the fact that it creates a year around farming operation on greatly expanded surface area has the ability to increase the earths ability to produce food a thousand fold. Expanding both the dimension and precision of farming operations will create unprecedented new levels of opportunity in agriculture, making future agribusiness professionals some of the most highly skilled people on earth. Thomas Frey is the executive director and senior futurist at the Davinci Institute and currently Googles top-rated futurist speaker. At the Institute, he has developed original research studies, enabling him to speak on unusual topics, translating trends into unique opportunities. Tom continually pushes the envelope of understanding, creating fascinating images of the world to come. His talks on futurist topics have captivated people ranging from high level of government officials to executives in Fortune 500 companies including NASA, IBM, AT&T, Hewlett-packard Unilever, GE, Blackmont Capital, Lucent Technologies, First Data, Boeing, Ford motor Company, Qwest, Allied Signal, Hunter Douglas, Direct TV, Capital One , National Association of Federal Credit unions, STAMATS, Bell canada, American Chemical Society, Times of India, Leaders in Dubai, and many more. Before launching the Davinci Institute, Tom spent 15 years at IBM as an engineer and designer where he received over 270 awards, more than any other IBM engineer. Via Colorado Biz Share Thissubscribedel. icio. usfacebookredditstumbleupontechnorati b

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