Optimising regulation of C21 Agrifood

Had the pleasure this week of presenting a Keynote at UNE Armidale and mingling with the leaders in our country reviewing, regulating and providing ag inputs that are enabling future growth and productivity gains for our farmers across the globe. 

The challenge for C21 is ensuring regulation does not kill or blunt vital innovation needed as we transition more into the “bio-technological century” of Ag. 

https://www.ract2020.org/home

Key points made: we over-estimate what can be achieved technologically in a few years (political cycle) but under-estimate what can (and will) happen over a generation. We need to prepare for this in both regulatory terms and in investment in R&D. This goes as much for the energy sector as it does for the ag sector this century. 

Take change by the hand, or it will take you by the throat….. 

• The next Generation is already here - and they are voting this decade, and in positions of influence already (on and off screen)!
• In order to have seamless (and rational) decisions made on new (and old!) tech in ag, education and capacity building will be a two way street (for Governments, regulators and industry)! 
• (ideal and optimal) regulatory arrangements need to accommodate/determine how to align with Next Gen

Key assumptions to deliver best outcomes in C21 for ag inputs: 

• Markets work best (ala Adam Smith) where there are common sets of standards and principles at play - ie laissez faire with caveats. 
• We need to assume from mid C21 agriculture is significantly more biological (and hi tech) in nature - in inputs, genetics, food inputs and modifications…. with all manner of regulatory implications. 
• Organic global market (and its “industry” of standards setting including stakeholder engagement) offers an example of a paragon of Smithian markets in action - for Governments and industry to note in application across other sectors/ regulatory applications. 
• We cannot afford to see (bio and related input) technologies yet to come fall prey to the vagaries of what has beset promising early biotech since the 1990s (simplistic polarisation, poor science transfer/capacity building). 
• The question is…. how do we let markets do what markets do best - knowing some regulation is inevitable (and possibly necessary/ideal) - in a new technological field of the mid C21? 

And in Conclusion:

• The future of a sustainable agricultural and food system will be more bio-technological – the question is how much time do we have to develop this in the years ahead and how much will the markets alone drive and transform this?
• The demands of the increasingly educated and more affluent consumer (smart, wealthy earthlings) will both constrain and drive some of these changes – sometimes in unpredictable ways. 
• Food producers, regulators, industry and government leaders beware! - consumers, citizens (and the industry!) will react in unpredictable ways if left out of the regulatory arrangements or misaligned policies. 
• More science, R&D and education is needed, however we need to plan for a (regulatory) world where rational decision making and common sense is not always so rational, nor so common.