In all of human history, nothing like it has ever happened. In fact, nothing even close to it has happened. Now, however, one billion low-income people, mainly in China and India, are expected to climb into the middle class within the next 10 years.
Robb Fraley, chief technology officer for Monsanto, describes it as “a step change” in its significance for global agriculture.
Overnight, these consumers will want to buy more and different foods, with a focus on the meats and on the fresh fruits and vegetables they couldn’t hope to afford in past.
Plus, they’ll also be looking for ethanol-blended fuels for millions of new motorcycles and cars.
It couldn’t happen at a better time, Fraley told the ABIC 2007 conference on Tuesday.
Just as demand is exploding, he said, knowledge is exploding too.
Almost incredibly, therefore, the world’s farmers can hope to meet these new needs.
Monsanto is working on a wide array of new input and output traits, including drought tolerance, which will not only provide more consistent yields for farmers, but will also help ensure there’s ample fresh water for the world’s growing populations.
“The tool box is built,” added James Iademarco, general manager for biomaterials for Bayer CropScience.
In the past decade, scientists have acquired new skills in manipulating plant genes, including the stacking of multiple genes in single varieties.
As with other companies, Bayer’s pipeline is also overflowing with traits that will bring new capabilities to agriculture, including everything from traits that extend the shelf life of fresh produce so it can survive the trip to those new urban customers, to new cotton varieties that are better able to clothe them.
Even Europe may come to embrace biotechnology, even if somewhat grudgingly. “Otherwise, they will become increasingly uncompetitive,” said Sano Shimoda, president of BioScience Securities. New traits will give the world’s farmers higher yields of higher value crops, he said, and the EU will no longer be able to provide enough subsidies for its farmers to keep pace with ag incomes overseas.
Plus, said Iademarco, European consumers would otherwise miss out on the health benefits of new biotech traits, and the European environment would miss out on the benefits of traits such as nitrogen utilization genes which allow farmers to reduce N fertilizer rates.
Increasingly, added Fraley, the ag biotech debate will stop being a battle between the EU and U.S., because governments from China, India and Latin America will speak more loudly for fair trade in biotech crops.
“I’m the eternal optimist,” Fraley said. “Seven European countries are already planting biotech corn, this year exceeding 100,000 hectares for the first time.”