Feeding the Future: A glimpse of tomorrow’s Agrifood Market

By 2050, the world's population is anticipated to reach approximately 10 billion people, posing a variety of difficulties in the coming years. The demand for high-value animal protein meals will rise, owing to urbanization and growing income levels throughout the world. 

These tendencies will ultimately jeopardize natural resource supply; in reality, predictions for 2050 show that agricultural land would become increasingly scarce. 

Climate change has a significant influence in this scenario. Natural force majeure such as dry spells and floods cost the agriculture industry an enormous amount in crop and livestock output damage or loss.

Increasing agricultural production and establishing a climate-resilient agricultural system are hence the most critical actions to take. As the conventional approach to the agricultural business undergoes a fundamental shift, more entrepreneurs and technology professionals have joined the agritech movement in recent years.

Additionally, investors are becoming more interested in the agrifood business and its entrepreneurs. 

In addition, people are progressively relocating from the countryside to cities, or from cities to the suburbs. This might create a rise in their income and, as a result, dietary changes. Meat items will be in higher demand, putting agricultural ability to satisfy rising food demands in jeopardy. Livestock production consumes a tremendous number of natural resources, from the land and water used to the food used to feed the animals. As a result, shift toward the intake of alternative proteins will occur.

To boost agricultural productivity, it is important to improve natural resource efficiency, increase output with the same number of inputs, and minimize food waste and loss. In this context, over 1.3 billion tons of food are thrown away each year. Food is wasted mostly at the consumption level in industrialized nations, but food is wasted throughout the harvest and post-harvest phases in least developed and developing countries. This is a critical issue because when food is thrown away, the water, soil, and natural resources required to create it are also thrown away.

Furthermore, tackling climate change and the increase of natural risks will be unavoidable through the deployment of adaptation strategies. Climate change is having an impact on every element of food production, and crop yields are anticipated to decrease. Food insecurity will almost certainly rise if attempts to adapt to climate change through agricultural innovation are not made. 

Upstream technologies are improving agriculture's production and efficiency while simultaneously creating climate change adaption strategies.

Following this route, an effective response to the rising population trend and rising food demand will be given, addressing the resource scarcity problem. Agricultural biotechnology, vertical farming, precision farming, and alternative proteins are four technical fields that might be regarded more significant in this regard. 

Agricultural biotechnology is based on modern genome editing methods (like as CRISPR) that allow for more selectivity and decrease the element of chance. These approaches may be utilized to not only develop breeds that are resistant to a wide range of circumstances, but also to proliferate them with vitamins and minerals.

Vertical farming is the practice of growing food in vertically stacked layers in areas where there is no available arable ground.

As a result, it is a simple solution for supplying high-quality food without occupying additional area. It uses soils, hydroponic, or aeroponic growth technologies in conjunction with urban farming, allowing to produce vegetables in the city center while consuming 95 percent less water, fertilizers, and soil. 

Precision farming refers to everything that makes farming more precise and regulated, especially when it comes to growing crops and rearing livestock. The utilization of information technology and a wide range of objects such as GPS navigation, control systems, sensors, robotics, drones, autonomous vehicles, automated hardware, and software is a significant driver of this activity. 

Alternative sustainable protein businesses are reshaping the market with innovative food technology that allows for the manufacture of meatless and cell-based products that taste and feel like regular meat without increasing the final cost. These technologies allow for a significant reduction in the number of inputs utilized, boosting food chain efficiency. 

All these technologies result in a more efficient use of resources and a reduction in the number of resources used, therefore enhancing the productivity and long-term viability of agricultural operations. 

Even if certain solutions may assist reduce food loss, these ideas are more about altering the way we pick and consume food than they are about addressing the major Agrifood problems.