3 Reasons Why Food Foresight is Necessary
Food and Ag touch everything in the world like no other industries do.
Food and agriculture, like no other industry, has a profound impact on the health of people and the planet. The cost of not looking ahead and being thoughtful about the accumulative effect of your business on the future is far higher than in most non-food industries.
Here’s an excerpt from my latest article at evokeAg’s website, Asia Pacific’s premier agrifood innovation event. This is the second article from me in a series on food innovation and foresight on their site. Stay tuned for more. -Mike
I grew up in The Motor City – Detroit, Michigan – and one of my favourite things to do as a kid was see the annual Detroit Auto Show.
But I wasn’t there for the regular cars, I was there to see the concept cars. Something about the audacity and ambition of a huge industry like the automotive industry spending all this time and money on a product that wasn’t for sale was inspiring. Concept cars were not moneymakers. They were projects that would help car companies not only think deeply about the future, but shape it.
The food and agriculture industry needs to take a page from the auto industry and spend more time practicing foresight like those concept cars.
With big challenges tied to food like climate change, soil degradation, and diet-related diseases looming large, business as usual is no longer an option. Despite these dangers, food companies and consumers are frequently stuck in short-term thinking.
Next quarter’s earnings targets or tonight’s dinner are usually more of a priority than the long-term well-being of human and planetary health.
To build a more sustainable, equitable, and nourishing food system, the industry needs to spend more time on foresight – the practice of envisioning possible futures to inform better decisions today.
Click here to visit the evokeAg website to read about 3 reasons why food foresight is necessary.
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Mike Lee is a food futurist and author of Mise: On the Future of Food.