New food revolution heralds changes for consumption and production
San Jose, Costa Rica, June 11, 2010 (IICA). Food, far more than a simple human need for survival, has become a true reflection of modernity. Consumers purchase a product, not just to stave off hunger, but to fit their particular nutritional, health and esthetic needs and even reflect their commitment to the environment.
These changes are coming together under the rubric of the new Food Revolution. A recent technical forum organized by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) on June 10 at Institute headquarters in Costa Rica examined the nature of these changes and their implications for the production chain.
Chilean expert Arturo Barrera claims that food reflects the way societies live and therefore changes as the world changes. This is the broadest, most profound food revolution the human race has ever witnessed.
“We used to produce assembly-line style, but now the idea is to differentiate. We are at the threshold of this new revolution that is shaping up as the convergence of different eating styles, the expression of personality through food, and a boom of functional and nutritious foods,” explained Barrera.
“By 2040, food globalization will intensify, with a strong push toward developing tailor-made food solutions for specific groups, such as pregnant women or older adults. People will assert their rights more and more, and growing numbers of socially responsible consumers will have an influence on how food is produced,” he added.
He went on to explain that changes brought by this revolution are being translated into new ways of cultivating, processing, distributing, consuming and managing sustainability and risk.
Mario Montero, vice president of the Costa Rican Chamber of the Food Industry (CACIA) asserted emphatically that the preference for personalized food is no passing fad. “It is here to stay and has had an impact on both producers and industries as they adjust to the new demand.”
Eduardo Alonso, consultant and adviser to the Auto Mercado supermarket chain, feels that this new type of demand reflects a growing awareness of the importance of healthy eating; as it happens, what you eat can also lend certain social status.
“This demand is being met by a new, different kind of supply, opening opportunities for producers to boost profits by offering items with added value, such as different nutritional qualities or the use of environmentally friendly production systems,” he added.
The benefits of this revolution, however, have remained in the hands of the food processing industry and those who distribute and sell, agreed IICA Director General Víctor M. Villalobos and the Representative for Costa Rica of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Alan Bojanic.
“All the industrial development we see happening is concentrated in post-harvest processes; we need to think more about the farmer's role in this revolution. Farmers are not yet moving into value chains,” emphasized Villalobos.
In Bojanic's view, this so-called food revolution has not relieved problems of inequality in access and distribution.
Indeed, new technologies able to produce higher quality crops at lower risk would contribute much toward narrowing the equality gap in access to the benefits of the revolution. Nevertheless, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) are investing next to nothing in research and development.
Users, but not developers
LAC, today the top adopter of biotechnology, is home to three of the world's four largest producing countries of transgenic products. The picture is very different for the development of farming technology.
“Altogether, the region invests only five percent of the total resources that the United States invests in technology and innovation, and Brazil alone accounts for 50 percent of that research budget. The region's primary sector has fallen behind,” according to international expert Eduardo Trigo of the CEO Consulting Group of Argentina.
In Trigo's view, the region has not tapped the potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs), especially biotechnology, to develop new agroindustrial products and inputs and thus become more responsive to the natural constraints under which agriculture operates. Such technologies would also be useful for developing modern functional foods, the demand for which is growing fast.
Enrique Alarcón, of IICA Technology and Innovation, agreed that the region is not ready to seize new opportunities. “Every dollar invested in research and technology produces a return of around US$120. The question, then, is why we do not invest. I think this responsibility cannot be left exclusively in the hands of the government; we need to create partnerships and show how important it is to invest,” he added.
In this regard, Costa Rica's Deputy Minister of Agriculture Tania López emphasized that strategies should be designed to attract developers. “The countries of the region can never invest in technology at the same level as the private sector or transnational enterprises. Instead, they need to attract more companies to come and invest in agriculture, to build partnerships between the private sector and public institutions,” she explained.
Bernardo Mora, of the Costa Rican National Agricultural Innovation and Technology Transfer Bureau (INTA Costa Rica), underlined the need to continue strengthening public research bureaus.
“The region needs to jump-start its biotechnology platform by strengthening the research centers. Highly trained people are already available, but ingenuity alone is not enough to bring innovations,” he claimed.
Eating will never be the same. It will become an increasingly complex phenomenon with deeper social and psychological meanings. In fact, even though the world is racing toward a food revolution, there is no sign of a death certificate for traditional food systems, concluded one of the forum attendees.
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