Session 7

This session was a continuation of the previous lesson of Bio-Business. This week's blog is focused on agriculture, environmental life sciences and industrial biotechnology.

Prof mentioned that the building blocks of life is the fairly similar for all life forms. Its amazing how the building blocks of life can form so many different species.  

Many of the tools that are designed and implemented through the bio medical industry first then its applied to other sectors like agriculture. Prof also introduced to us the different colours of bio-technology. There are the red, blue, white and green biotechnology.

Red bio-technology: Applies to humans  
Blue bio-technology: Applies to marine life
White bio-technology: Applies to industrial
Green bio-technology: Applies to plants

The first video we watched shows how humans are destroying Earth by exploiting the Earth's resources. The video compared humans to parasites. Personally, I feel that this view that humans are parasites are too extreme. Yes indeed, humans have been irresponsible in the past where we exploit natural resources for our own selfish gains. This is evident from all the deforestation and global warming that affects the world now. Humans have now begun to realise that harmful impact their actions have on the world. Hence, we are trying to make amendments and change the way we do things. The rise of awareness of the need to create a sustainable environment in order to allow future generations to lead a comfortable life.
     
If everyone operates the same way we will not have enough resources. But if we are able to produce the resources we need by ourselves, it is possible for us to consume as much as we want. However, we are now using non-renewable resources to sustain our standard of living.

As the world population increases, it is increasingly difficult for us the sustain the kind of living standards that we have now. People who lived in the rural areas are now migrating to cities in search of better jobs. Currently, slightly over 50% of the world population lives in cities. This trend is going to continue for the years to come and there would be challenges that we will face.

As farmers change jobs and work in cities, their energy consumption level increases and the resources that they consume would indefinitely increase. However, there may be benefits to live in the cities. Farmers can grow their own food and this is more healthy. As the world population increases, a higher production of food is needed to sustain the world's population.

There have been many advancements in the production of food for example there are organic food and genetically modified food.

Here's a question how much are you willing to pay for organic food? I will be willing to pay around 10-15% more for organic food.

Genetically modified food caused quite a discussion as some people feel that it is not right the modify food and there may be health consequences. In the US, the government stand on GM food is that no labeling is needed. However, Europe feels that labeling of GM food is needed to allow the consumers to know the type of food that they are consuming. I feel that labeling of food products is needed as the consumer should be aware of the food what are they consuming. They can then make the choice of whether they want to consume GM products.

There are many opportunities with the change in production of food. Food processing is one area as food are now chopped up and packet for the convenience of people. Families who are too busy to cut and prepare food can now purchase such products.

Food biotechnology is also another area where there are significant improvements. One of the presentation this week was about using sewage mud to produce meat. This presentation was really interesting as I did not know that this could be done. However many challenges need to be overcome before it can be widely implemented. The most significant problem is that people have to first overcome the psychological barrier of consuming meat that is made from sewage mud.

In terms of fishery, there are farmed and wild fishes. I was quite surprised to know that over 70% of the fishes that we eat are farmed. Wild fishing only constitutes to a small part of human consumption. Lumbering causes a lot of resources to be lost.

As the number of people working in the agricultural sector decreases and the pressing need for more food due to an increase in population, machinery and technology helps to replace manual labour and increase productivity in farms. With better knowledge, big industrial farms can captialise on economies of scale and maximise output.

But should we focus on producing food or energy resources?

Corn cobs can be used as form of energy resource and it can also feed people. Many plots of land that have been used to plant food are now used to grow crops for energy resources. With millions of people in the world with no food to eat, it is wasteful to use food as an energy resource instead of giving it to the people. There is already an even distribution of food in the world. The developed nations are having accessed to more food than what they require. Hence, using food as an energy resource further depletes the food source. Therefore, i don't think we should use food as an energy resource.

The lesson was really interesting and I learnt more about the agricultural sector and the problems that it faces. Through it, I am reminded again that we should all try not to waste food and only order what we can finish.

Overall rating: 9/10