OPINION: A colleague of mine, Ben Reid, tweeted the other day that New Zealand is in danger of fast becoming the "Detroit of Agriculture" – a rustbelt left behind after production has moved elsewhere. Unfortunately, I am inclined to agree.

With technology, science and new business models evolving, accelerating and converging at breakneck speeds, industries globally - from energy, transport and accommodation to banking, healthcare and media - are having the rug pulled right out from beneath their feet.

Sadly, our economic mainstay of agriculture is next on the chopping block. Fast en route towards becoming a sunset industry, overtaken and displaced by disruptive technologies, science breakthroughs and new business models.

Supplied Technology futurist Dr Rosie Bosworth warns Kiwi farmers need to keep on top of fast moving technology.

And the people at the helm? Not our dairy farmers, apple breeders or savvy winemakers. But sneaker wearing tech millennials and wealthy Tesla-driving Silicon Valley venture capitalists and well funded research agencies. Most of these people have no background in agriculture, at least in the traditional sense, nor affiliation with New Zealand.

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This is a scary thought for our farmers, our policy makers and for every New Zealander who has indirectly benefited from the export revenues that traditional pasture based agriculture has afforded us since our very existence as a new world nation.

WARWICK SMITH/FAIRFAX NZ More technology is afoot for agriculture than just smart phones.

Smart Farming just delays the inevitable

I'm not talking about the threat of technologies that have afforded precision agriculture's day in the sun such as sensors, crop yield monitors and satellite imagery. Or new smart farming hardware and software systems enabling our farmers and growers to digitalise, monitor and measure and improve their conventional farming with more efficiency. Yes, these technologies are highly beneficial and help farmers improve their farm productivity (think crop yields), efficiency (think energy and water use) and sustainability (think less effluent, emissions and healthy soil).

In New Zealand our farmers are, thankfully, well ahead of the pack globally when it comes to our adoption rates of this type of pasture-based technology. But these technologies are not disruptive to agriculture. That's because they are designed for a living breathing moo cow, a pasture (or cage) roaming egg laying chicken, a spring leaping lamb or outdoor fruit orchards and picturesque vineyards. And vast acreages of monoculture vegetable fields.

They are technologies designed for a system that will fast become to food production what the cassette tape has become to Spotify. A paradigm on the brink of extinction.

I'm talking about the threat of technologies and innovations that are currently designing the New World of agriculture and food production - Agriculture 2.0. The technologies enabling the rise of lab manufactured and bio-printed animal and plant proteins, and indoor and vertical sensor controlled crop production of almost any variety. The technologies developing the next generation of soil and seed technology negating the need for genetic modification and pesticide use. And CRISPR (short for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats), a tool that allows scientists to edit genomes with unprecedented precision without a trace of GMO.

Technologies that are underpinning a new agricultural paradigm enabling everyone on the planet to eat ethical and sustainable versions of tasty meaty and juicy protein. To consume - and even grow - environmentally friendly and nutritious versions of fresh produce when they want. Where they want. Whatever the weather is doing.

This is a system that New Zealand's conventional agrarian based agricultural model is wildly ill suited to. But it's the only system designed to feed a world of 8.6 billion people while keeping the planet intact and without the need to displace even more of our precious rainforests, native forests and eco systems.

New Zealand vs World

Only 18 months ago I wrote that the cow that has so lucratively helped bolster NZ's bottom line for decades is about to be disrupted by tech entrepreneurs, mainly in Silicon Valley. Start ups such as Impossible Foods, Memphis Meats, Kite Hill, Willow Cup and Perfect Day (previously branded Muufri) are now successfully producing tasty, healthy and environmentally friendly protein, milk and dairy product alternatives and substitutes such as beef, chicken, milk and dairy products. They taste like the real thing and look like the real thing except they do not come from an animal.

Similarly, Hampton Creek and Clara Foods, among a handful of others, are now reinventing eggs and tasty egg products like mayonnaise – without the chicken. And indoor and vertical farming start-ups such as Aero Farms, FarmedHere, Gotham Greens and indoor shipping container start-up FreightFarms are redefining the very essence of what environmentally friendly, healthy and locally produced arable crop farming looks like. Without a rolling green pasture in sight.

But since these stories were published, the pace of disruption to New Zealand's ag sector has accelerated – almost exponentially. Agtech start-ups displacing poor Daisy the cow are popping up faster than I can keep up with. Now not even our wine industry or fisheries – seemingly safe bets – are immune. San Francisco start up – Ava Wines – is busy engineering top quality wine with no grapes or fermentation that even revered wine masters like Bob Campbell would be hard pressed to tell the difference. The wine experience is being recreated in the lab using science and the molecular reconstruction of food, without a grape or water intensive irrigation system in sight. New Zealand's cash producing vineyards might soon be no more than defunct yet picturesque tourist destinations.

Similarly, New Wave Foods, another Silicon Valley start-up is mastering the art of producing, using biochemistry, plant based shrimp and seafood alternatives that are healthier and better for the environment. All happening miles away from the depths of any ocean.

And don't even get me started on novel insect protein start ups that are eating into NZ's animal protein derived competitive advantage. New kids on the block like Tiny Farms, Exo and Entomo Farms are using lab product cricket factories to produce sustainable and clean forms of nutritious protein alternatives for health-conscious consumers rebelling against the dirty and environmentally taxing cow. Thank goodness at least one forward thinking Kiwi start up, Anteater, has seen the opportunity in this space and is helping to put NZ on the map of Ag 2.0. Where are the rest?

But that's not all. The very same genetic engineering, technology and science that once brought GMO, drought, herbicide, and pesticide resistance traits to the market are now being used to produce far superior non GMO strain of seeds, healthy plant probiotics and microbiomes and digital plant recipes, that are not only productive and nutritious but also incredibly more environmentally friendly and sustainable than their wayward traditional counterparts. In the mass markets that need them – like the USA, a nation crippled by GMO and ready to rebel, as well as rapidly expanding Asia. Is New Zealand ready to compete with such an attractive competitive offering?

For example Indigo Ag, the latest darling amongst the ag-tech venture capital community, AgBiome and New Zealand's own, Biolumic and BioConsortia have developed technology that enables plant seeds to be bathed in carefully crafted concoctions of light spectra or ancient microbes, bacteria and fungi to make plants healthier, hardier, and more drought resistant without the need for pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. Such advances in biotech, CRISPR and genomics are undeniably a crucial and welcome development in the world of global food security and food health. But they also have huge potential to render the need for New Zealand's healthy, safe non GMO fruit and veg crops almost redundant. A scary thought for our horticultural sector.

Where to from here?

Granted, not all of the mentioned start-ups have hit the market at scale, and some are still in the R&D phase. But their potential to wildly disrupt conventional agricultural players over the long term should not be dismissed by even the most niche food or on-farm producer.

These are the technologies disrupting agriculture. Not the latest smart farming apps which are merely stop gap, band aid solutions that will only help our farmers in the short term. They, too, will become as redundant as quickly as they were developed.

- Dr Rosie Bosworth is a technology futurist and strategic communications consultant with a strong focus and interest in disruptive technologies and agritech. Full story published by Pure Advantage https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__pureadvantage.org_news_2016_11_29_lament-2Dnz-2Dfarm_&d=DgIFaQ&c=N9aEhCy8U0rJkO1xCZf7rgM9fohfR5qe_N93viZd7O8&r=kj0MpyRc13mxDOIGogBzz_AqMgt05KfV8ZUzdHki7y0&m=5vjduaIBjL09qfDnY-l5Bx4OytCBEix2XIrRd6AGMVY&s=qkbap1trk0zkbWrHT4RTF4xoQ0qaPFXH1jhowyc5zNs&e=