An Ahimsa Crisis: You Decide: Good News: Agriculture Technology Could Change How The World Eats

Good News: Agriculture Technology Could Change How The World Eats

From Las Vegas Sun, Sunday, December 28, 2014

Investors and entrepreneurs behind some of the world’s newest industries have started to put their money and tech talents into farming - the world’s oldest industry - with an audacious agenda: to make sure there is enough food for the 10 billion people expected to inhabit the planet by 2100, do it without destroying the world and make a pretty penny along the way.

Silicon Valley is pushing its way into every stage of the food-growing process, from tech tycoons buying the farmland to startups selling robots that work the fields to hackathons dedicated to building the next farming app.

Dozens of companies are creating technology to make farmland more productive and farming more efficient, using robots to trim lettuce or software to calculate grass production for cattle grazing. Others are tapping technology to find substitutes for meat, cheese and eggs, so less land is used to raise livestock, fewer greenhouse gas-spewing trucks are used to transport them, and fewer animals are subject to inhumane slaughter. Venture capitalists have propped up startups such as Hampton Creek, which sells mayonnaise and cookies that use plant products instead of eggs, and Impossible Foods, a Redwood City company making hamburgers and cheese without meat and dairy.