The current world population is just under eight billion people and is growing at roughly just over one percent a year. That means that every year the world adds 79 million people to its population. That is 79 million more mouths to feed on a yearly basis. At current rates, by the year 2050, the world population is expected to reach 9.7 billion people or more.
In the food world, predictions today are hard to come by on how much food we will be able to produce and how we will be able to feed growing populations when we already struggle to feed the world’s population as it stands now. But that is where the food tech industry comes in.
The food tech industry is emerging as a powerful business sector that is learning to innovate and apply technologies that will help create efficient and sustainable food production in all areas. This includes designing, producing, choosing, delivering, and enjoying the food that is produced on top of just making sure that there is enough. And while the food tech industry is fairly new in terms of outright existence, it is one of the most rapidly growing industries in the world due to its importance.
No Room For Traditional Farming
In the future, with population totals on the rise, it could be a possibility that urban and suburban areas will continue to sprawl and grow in size, eliminating acres and acres of potential farm ground. We are already seeing the price of farmland skyrocket and large tracts of farmland being sold off so that subdivisions, solar farms, and other urbanized locations can be constructed. But eventually, we will need that land more than ever and it won’t be there to produce crops.
This is where the food tech industry is trying to make headway. They are trying to figure out the means of using technology to produce sorely needed agricultural crops without the need for farmland that is and will be scarce in many parts of the world. New technologies are being used to not only grow crops without farmland, but also to engineer, take care of, and harvest those crops without much need for human input.
These practices may one day help feed the world’s population in ways we cannot even predict yet.
Engineered Food
Right now, in most well advanced countries, some of the biggest health fads seem to be organic foods that are healthier than foods that contain GMOs and other types of modifications. But in the future, organic foods might be a thing of high luxury versus what it might take to survive. Companies are coming up with better ways to engineer and come up with inventive ways to produce food all the time by altering the genetics of foods.
Agricultural companies that specialize in seeds and crop production are also working diligently to create genetically modified seeds that grow crops in less than ideal situations. Currently, this attempts to mitigate bad growing seasons in areas that struggle from time to time. But in the future, it may be the best way to grow crops in areas that are currently deemed inhospitable to growing crops.
AG Tech
AG Tech is defined as services and technologies that are created to help with farming efficiency and sustainability. This can include the use of sensors, drones, software for management, and automated machinery. The technology that is finding its way to farms around the world currently is staggering, especially when you look back to even 10 and 20 years ago. It has come a long way.
Many of these sciences and uses of technology are helping farmers now, but as they continue to adapt, evolve, and get better over time, farming will completely change and we could see a whole new era of big, commercial farming as we have never seen before. Right now, many big farms are using GPS guided tractors for work. Soon we could see a handful of farmers running and controlling their equipment from a room in one of their machine sheds remotely.
These innovations and the use of technology to produce food products will be vitally important in the future and should be paid very close attention to.