Here Comes The NEW Green Revolution New ways of thinking catapulted fertilizer use in the mid-20th century, triggering the first Green Revolution. It’s credited with alleviating world hunger and saving countless lives. That was a true paradigm shift. In the February issue, I made the case that feeding 8 billion people today would lead to great opportunities. This month I circle back to this arena and show how striving to reach that goal sustainably will favour particular agrifood subsectors. But first, I’ll detail this sector’s progress over millennia so you can better understand how and at what pace we arrived where we are today, and why the future is so bullish. Let’s start with a look at this chart of fertilizer consumption. How did the planet go from relatively limited to explosive use? This true paradigm shift, like those Gwen fleshed out last month, embodied new ways of thinking and doing that became widely adopted and created tremendous wealth for those involved. Before we look at where this paradigm shift is heading next, let’s look back at how agriculture evolved. According to a team led by archaeobotanist (a new term for me) Amy Bogaard from the University of Oxford, the […]

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