While the public debate rages on over the value of genetic food enhancements versus the value of organics, one central fact remains inescapable: we will soon reach a food crisis. In the very near future there will simply be more human mouths to feed than there is food to feed them. In other words, mass starvation is not a probable outcome but a definite one if we do not do something now to avert the calamity.
The question, of course, is what should we do? The answer is not a singular one but a collection of efforts all aimed at solving the various challenges throughout the farming process.
In regards to the genetic enhancement work on livestock that we see happening now, such will continue but the science behind those efforts will get better. The goals – to produce disease-resistant, drought-resistant, high production animals – will remain the same. However, the collective approaches towards those goals will change and improve but also broaden.
Part of that broadening will include new automation technologies to speed food production and overcome the limits of human labor. Specifically, robotics will take a more central role in farming. Robotics is not a new concept to farmers. Automation exists today in everything from dairy milking machines to hay balers and lots of stuff in between.
But the robotics in use today are essentially simple-minded, one-task servants. Most require humans to operate them or at least oversee their work. By contrast, future farm robots will be intelligent and multi-task machines that will tend to everything from artificial insemination to tending the fields entirely on their own. In this way, farming tasks will be performed faster, with more precision, and in non-stop motion. After all, robots do not need sleep or bathroom breaks. And many will operate with little to no human intervention.
As previews of farming robotics to come, take a look at these videos on two different versions of the new multi-taskers.
The intelligent “swarm” of robots….
The Lettuce Bot….
Once intelligent robots are perfected and in wide use, it is highly likely that genetic enhancements and manipulations of animal meats will take a turn to meet robotics in the middle of the field, so to speak. For example, robotics can “raise” lab meats at a phenomenal rate just as they can tend entire animals and fields of plants on the farm.
Lab cultured meat is not restricted to beef, by the way. Everything from chicken and pork to fish and frog leg meat can be produced the same way.
To understand how edible meats are made in a laboratory, and how future robotics can one day take over the task of their mass production, watch this video:
Suffice it to say that traditional farming is about to undergo radical changes from a number of disruptive technologies, all of which will come together in a seamless force of mega-food production. Let’s hope it all happens in time to save us from the largest starvation event mankind has ever faced.