No need to look back now

For about the last 150 years agricultural products have declined in value relative to all other goods. The world economy has been on a consumer growth boom based on oil. As oil derived products replaced agricultural ones our industry suffered. Clothing became nylon, buildings became concrete instead of timber, fuel became oil and gas etc. We were left with only food to supply the population. Recently even that has been under threat with lab grown meat and vertical farms. Value only comes from scarcity, and as we have been so good at producing food the value has dropped dramatically. However, something is changing, and it is huge. That decline is at the point of turning around. Net Zero means not using fossil fuels and industries are in trouble. How can they replace oil? The first industry to really put its head over the parapet and ask the land-based industries to help them out has been the plastic industry. A key building block of plastics is ethanol, traditionally derived from oil. But the customers want a low carbon version and the way to make this is through grown products such as sugar beet. Agriculture is being asked to decarbonise the plastic industry. Rest assured that this will not be the last industry needing decarbonised. Opportunities will abound. The future of land-based production and Agri-tech is rosy. It is vital that we value our role in the target of net zero and get away from being price takers with limited market power.