Issue Fermentation-created value may not land where agricultural livelihoods are lost

Summary

The Dubai Future Foundation outlook identifies displacement as the hardest challenge posed by precision fermentation. Agriculture sustains more than a billion livelihoods worldwide. Yet the jobs and value created by fermentation may not arise in the rural areas where farm employment is most at risk. The same shift that could make food systems more resilient might also cut future production off from the crops, herds and land-based knowledge on which whole economies rely. Control could concentrate as well, because strain libraries and bioreactor capacity are likely to be held by fewer companies, investors and industrial hubs than farmland is. The outlook suggests food security could move from a question of geography to one of infrastructure, favoring places with cheap clean power.