8. Plowing the Back 40 (Gallons)
So where will the food come from to overfeed 8 to 10 billion people by 2050? Primarily from tissue-culture grown in laboratory vats, instead of the traditional growing of whole plants in soil, according to author and activist Jeremy Rifkin. His book The End of Work has a section entitled The End of Outdoor Agriculture that explains this future, and present, science:
The coming together of the computer revolution and the biotechnology revolution into a single technological complex foreshadows a new era of food production – one divorced from land, climate, and changing seasons . . . In the coming half century, traditional agriculture is likely to wane, a victim of technological forces that are fast replacing outdoor farming with manipulation of molecules in the laboratory.
Chemical companies are already investing heavily in indoor tissue-culture production in the hope of removing farming from the soil by the early decades of the twenty-first century. Recently, two U.S.-based biotechnology firms announced they had successfully produced vanilla from plant cell cultures in the laboratory. Vanilla is the most popular flavor in America. One third of all the ice cream sold in the United sates is vanilla. Over 98 percent of the world’s vanilla crop is grown in the small island countries of Madagascar, Reunion, and Comoros. In Madagascar alone, which produces 70 percent of the world’s harvest, 70,000 peasant farmers rely on this single crop for their livelihood. Vanilla, however, is expensive to produce. The vanilla orchard has to be hand-pollinated and requires special attention in the harvesting and curing process. Now, the gene-splicing technologies allow researchers to produce commercial volumes of vanilla in laboratory vats – by isolating the gene that codes for the vanilla protein and cloning it in a bacterial bath – eliminating the bean, the plant, the soil, the cultivation, the harvest, and the farmer.
Escagenetics, a start-up biotechnology company headquartered in San Carlos, California, has produced vanilla in tissue culture at a fraction of the cost of producing natural vanilla. While natural vanilla sells on the world market for about $1,200 per pound, Escagenetics says it can sell its genetically engineered version for less than $25 per pound.
Indoor tissue-culture food production will eliminate millions of jobs along the entire agricultural grid. In addition to making most farmers redundant – a small percentage of them will still be required to manage biomass crops – continuous-process food production will eliminate jobs in auxiliary industries related to the farm sector, including the manufactures of farm equipment and long-distance haulers.
The advantages, argue the proponents of tissue-culture farming, include reduced use of land, less soil erosion, less agrichemicals, and reduced energy and transportation costs. [1]
The good news will be drastically declining food costs for the world’s population and less ecological damage. The bad news (for some) include displacement of hundreds of millions of farmers and economic hardship for both individuals and countries that are dependent on (yesterday’s) agricultural economy. This technology, combined with a population decrease, adds up to more bad news for farmers – land prices (their primary asset) may drop so far that deeds may be given away as prizes in a box of Cracker Jacks™. As an aside, since The End of Work was written over 5 years ago, I decided to check out Escagenetics to see if they are still around. They are, and (for a biotechnology company) progressing nicely. [2]
This is an excellent example of how predicting the future, without considering major technological breakthroughs, is at best an exercise in futility. And since technological breakthroughs themselves, by their very nature cannot easily be predicted, it behooves us all to take predictions in general, especially those for gloom and doom, with a huge grain of salt (most likely to be synthesized instead of mined).
[1] Jeremy Rifkin, The End of Work (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995), pp. 123-127.
[2] Business Summary from Westergaard Online in association with Market Guide Inc. from their website at: http://www.westergaard.com:8080/MGI/SNAP/3120A-CS.htm.”ESCAgenetics Corporation, 830 Bransten Road, San Carlos, CA 94070, (415) 595-5335, Ticker: ESNG, Exchange: OTC, Sector: Consumer/Non-Cyclical, Industry: Crops. ESNG employs biotechnology and advanced plant breeding methods to develop and produce improved crops, planting materials, and natural food ingredients. ESNG is also engaged in the research of a possible anti-cancer drug. For the 9 mos. ended 12/31/94, revenues rose 13% to $620K. Net loss decreased 13% to $5M. Results benefited from a rise in date palm and true potato seed product sales, and a decrease in R&D exps. due to completion of the taxol program.”