THE THIRD WAVE
A forecast of 20-year trends in world food supply prepared by the Center for Futures Research (CFR) at the University of Southern California suggests, for example, that several key developments are likely to slash, rather than increase, the need for artificial fertilizers. According to the CFR study, chances are nine out of ten that by 1996 we will have cheap controlled-release fertilizer which will reduce the need for nitrogenous fertilizer by 15 percent. There is a substantial likelihood that nitrogen-fixing grains will also be available by then, further reducing demand.
The report regards as “virtually certain” new grain varieties which produce higher yields per acre on non-irrigated land—with gains as high as 25 to 50 percent. It suggests that “trickle-drip” irrigation systems, with decentralized wind-powered wells and water distributed by draft animals, could substantially increase yields while cutting year- to-year fluctuations in the harvest.
Furthermore, it tells of forage grass that, because it needs only minimal water, could double the livestock carrying capacity of arid regions; of a potential 30 percent jump in non-grain yields in tropical soils as a result of a better understanding of nutrient combinations; of breakthroughs in pest control that will cut crop losses drastically; of new low-cost water pumping methods; of the control of the tsetse fly, which would open up vast new regions to livestock farming; and many other advances.
On a longer time-scale, one can imagine much of agriculture devoted to “energy farms”—the cultivation of crops for energy production.Ultimately we may see the convergence of weather modification, computers, satellite monitoring, and genetics to revolutionize the world’s food supply.
While such possibilities put no food in a hungry peasant’s belly today, First Wave governments must consider these potentials in their long-range agricultural planning, and must search for ways to combine, as it were, the hoe and the computer.
New technologies, associated with the shift to Third Wave civilization, also open fresh possibilities. The late futurist John McHale and his wife and colleague, Magda Cordell McHale, in their excellent study Basic Human Needs, concluded that the emergence of super-advanced biotechnologies hold great promise for transforming First Wave societies. Such technologies include everything from ocean farming to the use of insects and other organisms for productive work, the processing of cellulose wastes into meat vi a microorganisms, and the conversion of plants like euphorbia into sul-phur-free fuel. “Green medicine”—the manufacture of Pharmaceuticalsfrom previously unknown or under-utilized plant life—also holds high potential for many First Wave countries.
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