Net Positive future

The food system transition is one of the most pressing and complex challenges of our time. Against the backdrop of the current war, supply chain complexity and climate disruption, we need to produce sufficient nutritious food in a sustainable and fair manner to feed a growing population that is expected to reach 10bn by 2050. As the spending power of emerging markets increases, the rising food consumption per capita and a more meat-heavy human diet will put more and more pressure on our ability to feed everyone.

Given the importance of agriculture to the Netherlands and the world, how do we future-proof the Netherlands leadership position while reducing environmental impact. Sustainable agricultural production, healthy nutrition and waste reduction opportunities need to be grown and harvested in the Netherlands to translate the disruption into a leadership opportunity.

All the opportunities will help reduce emissions, but differ in terms of degree of impact. In the graph below these opportunities have been rankes based on three parameters: economic impact, environmental impact, and competitive advantage.

The opportunities that are expected the maximum environmental impact and that offer the most interesting business opportunities for the Dutch agriculture and food sector have two things in common:

• the use of technology to make agriculture sustainable
• rendering the existing livestock farms sustainable and reduce dependence on livestock diets.

Together, the shortlisted opportunities are expected to be at least $100bn by 2050 and can help reduce agricultural emissions by considerable amounts. Realising the true potential of these opportunities will require the stakeholders to come together and work in collaboration. To enable this collaboration, the role of an orchestrator is a crucial one.