Source: Agricultural risk- we are not thinking ahead
It’s time to ditch those glossy wankernomic-like vlogs on how serious food security is and deliver, simply ‘just stop it’, the irony is just getting too much. We really do talk about the obvious far too much- yes food is complicated, yes, it’s very important, and do you know it really is a system (!) and no it really is not all our responsibility.
The next twenty years will see European wheat production fall by at least 20 percent, that is what our risk models show us. Alternative crop producers know it, these are the pulse, ancient grain and vine growers who are currently 20 years early in North Western Europe and are ahead of the great loss curve. Wheat is far from alone here- to use a phrase from someone who made a lot of economic models, ‘the models are made to be tested and are usually broken’ by early adopters. The current risk equation built into our models is limited by today’s genetics and practice. Making sure crops are made for the environment they grow in is far from new, revolutions and a Nobel were made from delivering this two generations ago and it worked.
It takes about 8 to 15 years to get a new variety from initial crossbreeding to full commercial market volume. This is laid out as- Pre-breeding and Crossbreeding (4 to 7 years), Field Trials (3 to 4 years), Variety Testing and Official Approval (2 to 3 years), Seed Propagation and Commercial Volume (1 to 2 years). Consider that the delivery is on time and not constrained by weather, budget, workforce or market acceptance then I think 20 years is a favorable estimate. Time to get started and solve a few things?
