(My note: In the next post you will read about the UN's latest report on global hunger and food production. Closer study of the subject will tell you that most of the population increase between now and 2050 will be in Asia and Africa. If you are a food producer in the U.S. today, as you read the UN report your first reaction may be, "Well, if Asia and Africa are going to expand their populations that much, then they will have to figure out how to feed themselves. It's their problem if they can't afford to buy our wheat, corn and beef. We like our system." But what if a lot of the larger population in Asia lives in big cities with no way to feed themselves. What if they have the money to buy food, but the world can't grow enough? People have to have nutrition or they will take drastic measures before they die.
If you were literally starving to death do you think you would be willing to try a new, high-tech approach to obtaining nutrition? A high-tech entrepreneur who sees this situation will take the technology to the powers to be in the impoverished areas plus to support organizations such as the UN, and that person will introduce a new way of feeding people. Now, you may see this going on and say, "That's fine. Let them do what they want. We'll keep eating our food the way we like to do it." But what if hunger in the U.S. becomes worse, and people can't afford to buy regular pork or beef? What if that new system they are using over in Asia is feeding people at one-third or one-half the cost of traditional food? You know, the stuff all those young people are tweeting about all over the world?
And what if suddenly the U.S. government decides it must start looking at lower cost feeding systems to feed all the extra hungry people in America because it just can't afford to keep doing it the same old way? Then what?
In a global, connected economy, what works in one place is going to attract a lot of attention and study. The scientists and entrepreneurs are going to continue to push hard to develop new nutrition technology and the genetics knowledge to back it up. There is now and will continue to be a race on to see who can get there first. Google and Facebook may be the big stories today, but Google and the social media will only hasten the spread of knowledge that will ultimately replace them as the really important subjects.
If you are in traditional agriculture and you want things to stay the way they are, the clock is ticking. You don't have very much time to increase food production that people can afford to buy. You had better get busy, because you are in a new and different kind of race against time now. I hope you will read Dr. Kurzweil's prediction below, and think about it. He's a smart man with a solid track record.)
From my reference website, Nutrigenomics and Human Nutrition (https://sites.google.com/site/nutrigenomicsandhumannutrition/ ):
"By the way, have you ever heard of Dr. Ray Kurzweil? In case you have not heard of him, here is some information about him to get you started. Why? Because of his track record on predictions through the years, and because he made some profound predictions concerning the future of human nutrition in his iconic book, The Singularity Is Near. Let me get you started by telling you that he looks a lot at the fields of genetics, nanotechnology and robotics ('G, N and R') as well as human medicine. He has 19 honorary doctorates from various universities (so far). He is in the U.S. National Inventors Hall of Fame. He has received medals for his work from 3 U.S. presidents (so far), and he owns and directs his own technology company. He helped found Singularity University on the NASA campus in northern California, and he has an almost cult-like following of futurists. A very interesting man with some very interesting things to say. Here is his prediction.
' ------ nanotechnology-based manufacturing devices in the 2020s will be capable of creating almost any physical product from inexpensive raw materials and information. ------ We have the ability to redesign the world in our minds and to put these ideas into action. ---- The Singularity will unfold through these three overlapping revolutions: genetics, nanotechnology and robotics. ---- Many approaches are being developed for micro- and nanoscale machines to go into the body and bloodstream. Ultimately we will be able to determine the precise nutrients (including all the hundreds of phytochemicals) necessary for the optimal health of each individual. These will be freely and inexpensively available, so we won't need to bother with extracting nutrients from food at all. Nutrients will be introduced directly into the bloodstream by special metabolic nanobots, while sensors in our bloodstream and body, using wireless communication, will provide dynamic information on the nutrients needed at each point in time. This technology should be reasonably mature by the late 2020s.'
This is not a new prediction. In fact, it is now 6 years old. However, in my opinion it is a very interesting and important prediction with major implications if it comes true. Dr. Kurzweil made this prediction in his book, The Singularity is Near (2005), and he describes the 'Singularity' as the point in time (the year, 2045, to be exact) when the computing power of the world's computers will be one billion times more powerful than all human brains combined. He arrived at his conclusions by studying the exponential growth of technology, and he says that we are now in the 'knee of the curve' of exponential growth, and that actual changes and the rate of change will be increasingly more profound and more rapid from now on.
It will be interesting to learn how close we will come to his prediction as we go along into the future. I, for one, believe that it has to happen because of humanitarian needs, NC diseases and medical costs, politics, the global economy, people opposed to GM foods, the inability to stop food-borne illness, rapid scientific advancements and many other factors that are in play on a daily basis. What do you think?"
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