The Liminal Learning Portal

Source: Good Food Institute Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is about to set in motion a chain of feedback effects leading to a sudden, rapid escalation of global political instability. Various UN agencies, and now the IMF, have warned of social unrest at a similar scale to the ‘Arab Spring’ events in 2011. What few understand is the role of key technology disruptions in driving these processes, and helping us solve for them.  A new era of unrest   In addition to being the world’s top oil and gas exporter, Russia is the world’s largest wheat exporter, and Ukraine the fifth. Together Russia and …

There is a major disruption coming to the food system, one that is well detailed in our report Rethinking Food and Agriculture. In the report, we identify the core disruptive technology over the next 10 years to be precision fermentation (PF). The regulation of PF is key to shaping the disruption. Regulation and the food system go hand in hand, and rightfully so. Food has a direct relationship with public and personal health, and people must be protected from real threats to safety and any uncertainties with the ingredients in the food they eat, or how those foods are produced. …

Today, we are on the cusp of multiple disruptions in food and  materials. So why now? In a previous blog we discussed how precision fermentation (PF) has been around for 40 years. We know this because we can pinpoint the first product commercialized from PF – human insulin. Human insulin is an illustrative example of how PF created a superior product that led to a rapid disruption of an incumbent product. In this blog, we discuss some of the technology convergence that led to scientists being able to produce human insulin via PF, as well as some of the economic …

In Part 1 we discussed why Covid-19 has impacted industrial livestock farming. Here we discuss the rise of the new protein industry in a post-Covid-19 world. Covid-19 is accelerating the collapse of the old system and the growth of a new one.   Will Covid-19 speed up the replacement of livestock with a new system of agriculture? The short answer is yes. Aside from adding immense, crushing pressure to the farming industry, Covid-19 has highlighted the need for continuing food innovation as an essential component of a resilient food system. Early entrants have already proven that new production models are …