WILL FARMLAND BE NECESSARY? 

For years we have been hearing dire tales of farmland lost in conversion to housing and commercial developments. In several countries, organic innovations underway suggest that the farmland we are spending so much energy to protect may be the very last place to grow food in the future! In light of this potential global change, are we being realistic?

Not long ago the soil meant livelihood to 98 percent of North Americans. Today only two percent of the population earn a living as farmers and even that low percentage is dropping. Yet farmers are producing more food than ever before. What is causing this revolutionary change?

Simple cause and effect is increasingly rare. Changes result from the combination of dozens, hundreds or even thousands of individual decisions -- spending decisions, living decisions, family decisions, political and governmental decisions. All these influences accelerate change and thus change sometimes occurs with devastating speed. Witness the recent political changes in Eastern Europe.

The Escagen Corporation in San Carlos, California is growing genetically-altered true potato seeds (TPS) in a vat. Five ounces of this seed replaces a ton of tubers, the traditional way to plant potatoes. TPS delivers a much better product with less labor, no pre-planting storage, low transportation costs and no warehousing problems. Escagen is now working on growing oranges and cherries in vats -- without trees! No connection with soil.

In Japan, the Ajinomoto Corporation has produced genetically constructed bacteria that excrete cellulose, the basic component of our forests. Ajinomoto is producing an elastic paper so fine that Sony is already incorporating it into diaphrams for top-of-the-line acoustic headphones. Another potential use for the same product is for the artificial skin used on burn patients. This is not taking place on farmland but in a "factory". No farmland involved. Since they can produce fine paper to such demanding tolerances, perhaps they can eventually produce newsprint from the waste.

Akito Corporation in Japan has produced a mushroom that looks like a hamburger, tastes like a hamburger and cooks like one. No rangeland involved. The Japanese Fisheries Agency wants to produce all-female schools of salmon -- by manipulating chromosomes in fertilized fish eggs. Their Agriculture and Forestry Ministry is spending US $54 million this year developing fruit, vegetables, seeds and grains. This won't allow them to take over a large segment of the food industry right now, but 20 years down the road they will be more than ready.

EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow), right next to Disney World in Orlando, Florida, has been successful with vertical farming. Here 20 acres inside can grow more than 200 Canadian prairie acres outside. The East Malling Research Center in Britain is growing apple trees that look like flagpoles. They require about as much land space as a fence.

Mitsui Industries has moved in on the flower industry. Mitsui has produced virus-free lily bulbs, which previously required a large field, in an antiseptic vat the size of a desk, This is a US $69 million business in Japan. The well-known Kirin Brewery Company, an $8.4 billion beer producer last year, spent US$91 million on research during the same 12 months. Eighty percent went into bio-tech research, a major segment on vegetables. Last year Mitsubishi Kasei spent $139 million on research, half on such products as genetically improved rice.

Kyowa Hakko Kogyo Co. is researching a new approach to winemaking, maybe setting a trend for the future: They fused three strains of yeast -- and produced a rose called Fusion Bio, a much purer bouquet. No fields of grapes required here.

What will we do with the land? A recent fax announced a major investment of US$5.5 million in fish production by AAO Aquaculture International Corporation of Vancouver and Guadalupe, California -- for raising abalone. On land! All this may not result in lower prices on the supermarket shelf, but it will result in more nutritious products, grown with fewer or no pesticides and available on a year-round basis with no seasonal shortages nor astronomical price increases. Agricultural changes are happening faster, over a wider global area and involving more products. Think of the political implications when future time passes over those locked into a fixed agricultural policy?

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