Future Focus: Signposts to Success for New Zealand's Primary Industries
6. Technological Advances: Innovation for success
Global future insight
While the total field of technology is vast, it is useful to consider major global technological advances that have the potential to impact on New Zealand land-based industries. Some key aspects of the global technology scene to 2020 are:
Information and communications technology (ICT)
• Developments in ICT are likely to continue on established trends of rapid convergence – unless the global economy moves into recession, which would delay investment and slow the rate of advances. ICT is positioned increasingly as an enabler, not a core driver, of innovation.
• Quantum computing could emerge by 2015 and molecular computing by 2020, providing huge advances in speed and capacity. Holographic communications and displays may be available by 2020.
• “Ubiquitous computing” may be a reality; emergent “smart packaging” is an example. Self-generating software will emerge into practical applications and expert systems may equal human logic by 2015, raising strong ethical and security issues.
Automation
• The use of automation/robotics in processing and manufacturing will accelerate, integrated with information technology (IT) systems.
Health
• Advanced health technologies in disease prevention, detection and treatment will increase life expectancies and hence change demographic distributions in affluent countries.
“Green” technologies
• There is uncertain potential for the production of biochar from pyrolysis of biomass, principally wood and forestry residues. Biochar provides a means of carbon sequestration in soils, and is also capable of reducing nitrogen fertiliser requirements and nitrous oxide emissions. It improves soil structure and water retention, enhances nutrient availability, and supports soil microbes.18
• And in general there are major investment and business development opportunities in climate change mitigation or adaptive technologies, technologies producing energy from renewable sources (such as biofuels) and promoting energy efficiency, and “clean technologies”. It is uncertain whether advances in battery technology will improve the performance of electric or hybrid vehicles to the extent that biofuel options are superseded and/or become uneconomic.
The impact of these technological advances requires continual monitoring and assessment as they become available from outside New Zealand in ready-to-use forms that are purchasable, or enablers to be integrated with local R&D – or indeed as they become available to offshore competitors but not to New Zealand industry.
Technology needs of New Zealand land-based industries
The productivity of New Zealand’s primary industries is in part a reflection of substantial R&D investment in the past, and this needs to continue in the future. According to a Treasury estimate, the return on this investment is around 17 percent per annum.19 There also needs to be a continued increase in uptake of proven technologies, such as nitrification inhibitors for environmental mitigation.
Primary production sectors are forecast to be transformed through:
• the sustained productivity enhancement of genetically enhanced crops and animals;
• the production of value-added outputs – such as bioactives, nutraceuticals and functional foods with health benefits – from primary sector commodities, to generate more diversified market approaches.
Ongoing genetic enhancement through conventional breeding will continue to be very important, and New Zealand cannot afford to lose its leadership. There remain gaps in our underpinning knowledge of the basic physiology and biochemistry of grass and clover composition, rumen function, feed efficiency, etc. that must continue to be addressed.
GM?
It may be that the debate around GM will need to be revisited nationally, as it remains a substantial uncertainty, and there are complex and conflicting considerations to be weighed. Some of these include:
• Will competitors use GM and gain cost and other market advantages?
• Might GM approaches be valuable in achieving effective environmental mitigation or climate change adaptation?20
• What is the potential for product differentiation strategies through not using GM?
• Is a mixture of strategies possible (across New Zealand’s primary industries) without jeopardising demand in particular premium “anti-GM” markets?
Technology-related trends:
• Traceability and product assurance are increasingly critical to market access/success.
• Farm management will move increasingly in the direction of integrated systems using RFID,21 sensors, automation and software to manage operations and to develop reports on animal production, health and reproductive status, effluent management, etc.
• In future, high-quality environmental information might be accessible, not only to assist individual farm decision-making, but also aggregated to inform regional councils, and facilitate disaster prediction and response – based on an effective communications infrastructure.
• The demand for “organic” products is growing in premium markets, but it is unclear whether a broader definition of “sustainability” in products and supply chains – including carbon footprint, energy use, etc. – will in time embrace or supersede this as a basis for product differentiation.
• There is an opportunity for New Zealand to lead in environmental measurement and technologies, such as life cycle analysis; in “eco-verification”; and in technologies for mitigating methane and nitrous oxide emissions in pastoral agriculture.
• Leadership is also possible in bio-energy and biofuels technologies. A number of biofuel production technologies are already in development in New Zealand. These include ethanol from cellulose using coppiced Salix willow, and biodiesel from animal tallow or from algae used in bioremediation of sewage and dairy effluent. There is some optimism about the prospect of producing ethanol from forestry residues, once lignocellulosic fermentation is perfected.
• Whether a viable industry will develop that will fully address New Zealand transport energy demand remains uncertain, but the possibility of international strategic partnerships to commercialise technology developed in New Zealand should be explored (see also Section 2).
• In environmental research – for example, in biosecurity, biodiversity, land use, and water – there is a need for systems understanding and integration across multiple disciplines, for improved transfer and uptake of technology, and for effective information systems.
Nanotechnology in use
Food safety and packaging…
Many practical applications of nanotechnologies are likely to be in advanced development by 2020. These include nanosensors and nanofilters to detect and remove food-borne pathogens; nanopackaging for food safety and shelf life; nanosensors for traceability; and nanoparticles for the controlled release of flavours and nutrients inside food – raising issues of public support and consumer acceptance.
… environmental
Also in development are nanotechnology applications with environmental benefits, including sensors for improved monitoring and detection; remediation technologies for contaminated sites; technology for monitoring and filtration of water sources; “green manufacturing” to eliminate the generation of waste products; and technology for the creation of commercially viable, clean energy sources.
… health
Nanotechnology applications are emerging, not only in human health, but also in the diagnosis and treatment of disease in animals, by means of novel imaging techniques, and delivery technologies for drugs and vaccines.
18 Winsley P. New Zealand Science Review 2007;64(1):5-10.
19 Hall J, Scobie GM. The role of R&D in productivity growth: the case of agriculture in New Zealand 1927-2001. Treasury Working Paper 06/01, 2006
20 Through, for example, reduced pesticide use, reduced land use through growth efficiencies, or drought-resistance.
21 Radio Frequency Identification.
Contact for Enquiries
Strategy and Performance Group
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
Pastoral House
25 The Terrace
PO Box 2526, Wellington
Tel: +64 4 894 0593
Fax: +64 4 894 0738
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