Farming Talk – November 25
Farm491 held an innovation forum entitled New World Farming, bringing together a range of people to debate the challenges facing agriculture, including industry innovators, technologists, academics, farmers and businesses.
We began by asking how we would solve the current global food crisis, exploring farmer equity, environmental sustainability and food integrity.
Farm491’s Outreach Manager, Sarah Carr, tackled farmer equity. She described how farmers often face challenges out of their control and proposed that by empowering them with the right technology, we could promote an equitable supply chain.
Professor Louise Manning of the Royal Agricultural University explored the topic of food integrity, highlighting the fraud issues of food products and processes, where the labelling is not accurately describing what they are, for example the ham on a pizza actually being turkey.
I completed the debate by discussing environmental sustainability, and how complex issues, such as reducing the 53.5 gigatons of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, cannot be solved by a simplistic solution like stopping eating beef.
There is no single story in agriculture at the moment, it’s about where you’re doing it, and how you’re doing it – so tech needs to play a role in solving these complexities. We need more solutions to sustain food production.
Luke Halsey is head of Farm491 and programme manager
