I wrote: I like the high-tech approach to agriculture, but the hazmat suites and the > water sterilization seem a little anachronistic -- like a 1960s take on > what the future will be like. The view here in California looks a little > different, with the farmers' markets and the locavore movement -- people > are wanting food to be less high-tech rather than more high tech. >
This, as many will be aware, is how things have largely been done in Europe and many other places for a long time. It's really North America that is catching up. We fell in love with the industrial revolution and automation and got MacDonalds as a result. But I wonder whether MacDonalds and similar businesses will either have to adapt or risk going into decline in the next generation or two. Another possible example of the future of agriculture could be the so-called "fourth wave" of coffee. At some places you can order coffee from a binder, each page of which profiles a small coffee producer in some part of the world. It puts a face on the people making the coffee. It's all a little fancy, but I think there's something neat about looking into the otherwise anonymous supply chain. I think this kind of preference in product selection will catch on around the world as people have more disposable income, and that they will be willing to put up the additional money required for the decreased productivity that it implies. Eric
