Biotech can provide solutions to the global food crisis
The world faces massive future risks in both short-term and long-term perspectives. Crises in the field of food and agriculture play a major role, but solutions are increasingly available and being developed addressing a growing number of these issues, not least in the world-leading Danish biotech and ingredient sector.
For the past five days, and closing today, leaders from companies, organisations and governments all over the world have met at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
Prior to the current World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, the Global Risks Report 2023 was launched highlighting the potentially most severe risks faced by the world in the next decade.
According to the underlying Global Risks Perception Survey, failure of climate mitigation and climate adaptation are the biggest concerns in a 10-year perspective. Above all, the report is gloomy reading underlining the already well-known urgent need for global solutions addressing a very wide range of risks and inevitable challenges.
Biotech is part of the solution
While the need is urgent and wide-ranging, solutions are developed – if not readily available – across sectors and industries. The Danish biotech and ingredient sector is well ahead in this development proving that biotech is an indisputable part of both current and future solutions to food crisis addressing issues like scaling food security and climate mitigation.
Novozymes produces biotech solutions for the food, beverage and plant-based industry enabling sustainable nutrition for the world. However, as pointed out by the CEOs from Novo Nordisk Foundation, Novo Holdings and Novozymes respectively, the potential for upscaling, distributing is much bigger in a fruitful interplay between biotech companies, research and policy making:
“Combatting climate change and meeting the nutritional needs of a growing population without exhausting our planet’s resources are two of the biggest challenges of our time. Biotechnology holds solutions to both, but we are far from fully realising its potential to deliver on the green transition. Global food systems account for more than a third of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and with a global population that now counts more than 8 billion people, we must look to new solutions to be able to feed the world in a sustainable way. We urgently need sustainable technologies and methods to improve our current food systems and use of land for agriculture.”
“The decisions we make now, whether through policy-making, business or in society at large, will drastically impact our future and the world in which we live. It will not be easy, but we must try much harder.”
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Preview and download the Food Nation White Paper on the Danish ingredient sector
Sources: World Economic Forum and Global Risks Report 2023