TCI 2015 Cross-overs between Agro and High Tech
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The document discusses crossovers between the agro and high-tech industries in the Netherlands. It notes that population growth and food security are global challenges and that food clusters are part of a global supply chain. However, expanding livestock industries is difficult in some regions due to social opposition. The document also discusses challenges around integrating agriculture and high-tech industries in the Eindhoven region of the Netherlands, including creating livable cities, protecting nature, and facilitating industry growth, while overcoming obstacles between the sectors. It concludes that while the necessary conditions exist, active cluster management is still needed to fully realize potential crossovers.
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TCI 2015 Cross-overs between Agro and High Tech
- 1. Cross-overs between Agro and High Tech Mirte Cofino, Renze van Och, Peter Smeets Wageningen UR, The Netherlands Technical innovations enabling spatial quality Parallel Session 3.2: Clusters Promoting Cooperation and Effective Convergence between Industries
- 2. Food security: an urgent challenge
- 3. Population growth: rapid and uneven 3 Image source: The Global Education Project.ORG
- 4. Food clusters are inherently part of a ‘global pipeline’
- 5. Connected markets worldwide 5 Image source: Port of Rotterdam (2015)
- 6. Exchange of food flows is a prerequisite 6
- 7. Metropolises have a pivotal role to play in this respect
- 8. Key market Fragile in the face of food shortages Need for physical integration of food in urban spatial fabric
- 9. Northwest European Delta Metropolis
- 13. Kamer kritisch op plan intensieve veehouderij Brabant moet vergunning voor boeren aanscherpen “De provincie Noord- Brabant gaat ruim 1.500 vergunningaanvragen voor uitbreiding van een boerenbedrijf met strengere criteria beoordelen. Een (flink) aantal van de aanvragers zal hierdoor waarschijnlijk geen Provincie betreurt impasse veehouderij Expansion of livestock industries is sheer impossible in the region
- 14. ‘Large scale’ is no social favorite
- 15. Eindhoven and its surroundings
- 16. 16
- 17. Challenges 1.Create an attractive living environment for the cities
- 18. 1.Create an attractive living environment for the cities 2.Protect valuable nature Challenges
- 19. 1.Create an attractive living environment for the cities 2.Protect valuable nature 3.Facilitate the development of the agro sector Challenges
- 20. High-tech potential: vertical integration
- 21. High-tech potential: horizontal integration
- 22. High-tech potential: advanced agrologistics
- 23. Without intervention, clustering will not take place
- 24. 3. Preliminary lessons: obstacles and opportunities Preconditions are good: Agro and high-tech are already densely represented and ‘clustered’ in physical terms in and around Eindhoven region ● A highly advanced high-tech cluster with its origins in the presence of Philips as large-scale innovator ● A world leading ‘cluster’ of innovative agrobusiness But: the troubled reputation of the agro sector does not help in structurally and competitively linking the relationship between both sectors ● Social struggle with theme ‘food’ and ‘industries’ Potential solutions from physical clustering 24
- 25. A lot is still to be done The agro sector may benefit from physical clustering, but this is not self-evident: facilitation is a prerequisite. Cluster management will be needed to enhance cluster identity Internal competition is killing: Greenports, business parks and ‘valleys’ – all of this in just one metropolis High-tech and agro find one another in the market, but cultures remain strictly separated. High-tech is rather organized, whereas agro is much less so. 25
- 26. Thank you! ... and looking forward to meeting you again at TCI Eindhoven 2016! Mirte Cofino mirte.cofino@wur.nl +31 6 2211 5076 26
Editor's Notes
- First and foremost: here is the ‘why’ for which this is relevant: the world’s population is growing very rapidly, and unevenly at that, too. Most population growth will be taking place in Asia.
- In its role as importer of agrifoods, Rotterdam functions in the global agrifood network which allows for the worldwide distribution of fresh products, allowing us to eat mangos, avocados, rice, bananas and strawberries in December.
- Moving on towards the Eindhoven case, first, let me put this area in perspective. The city and ‘metropolitan region’ of Eindhoven are situated in the northwest European Delta Metropolis, an urban area of approximately 35 mln inhabitants. This picture portrays this metropolis at night, emphasizing how connected and urbanized this area really is. As such, any agricultural production and processing in this region may be considered to be taking place in an urban or peri-urban environment.
- The region boasts a strong agricultural sector, although in terms of communication, this has often been overshadowed by the Eindhoven’s image as a high-tech innovation hub – something traditionally not associated with food. Nonetheless, the agrosector has representation throughout the chain, and additionally provides significant employment opportunities in the area. Meanwhile, Eindhoven is increasingly starting to profile itself as a hip and happening location, with plenty of high-end restaurants, entertainment and facilities which meet the expectations of the increasing number of expats which are needed for the high-tech industries, among which most notably ASML, singlehandedly employing 10,000 highly qualified and extremely skilled employees from all over the world: talents which need to be convinced to opt not only for a job in ASML but also for a life in Eindhoven region. In this respect, spatial quality of the urban and natural environment is a key aspect which may be expected to strengthen the competitiveness of the region – and this is exactly where agro has a big role to play.
- A lot of work is still to be done to be able to feed this population. Although technically it is considered possible to feed even twice the projected world population using the same amount of land currently in use for agricultural production, actually making that happen is something completely different. Nonetheless, technology does play a significant role in making sufficient production at least theoretically possible. As a consequence of the increases in scale, the agrofood sector already makes a lot more use of high-tech systems: a simple but outstanding example are greenhouses, in which the entire composition of water and nutrients to the plant, as well as increasingly the light absorption, is being monitored by the grower. At the same time, this technology allows the production to be much more efficient and productive. Other examples include advanced animal production systems, in which IT increasingly plays an important role to reliably check animal well-being, nutrition and stable climate. Similarly, advanced GIS techniques are increasingly used in open field production of for example wheat, potatoes and corn. Further on in the food chain, advanced robotics and imaging techniques are increasingly used to control product quality, with recently developed equipment being able to ‘learn’ to judge plant- and/or product quality in a lot of detail. Automated food processing, on the other hand, increasingly requires very specific, high-quality input products – such as automated french fries cutting machines working with only very strictly specified size and shape of potatoes, while at the same time, new equipment is being for the productive re-use of rest- and by products. [include agrologistics] All of this greatly facilitates agriculture in becoming more productive, efficient and technically able to feed the world’s increasing population.
- Spatial quality of the sector is currently heavily compromised because of the spatial fragmentation among its agro companies. It is in exactly this densely populated yet also densely entrepreneurial region that the struggles between the development of the agricultural industry, or more precisely, the livestock sector, and its physical surroundings are coming to a climax. These newspaper snippets – about the removal of the milk quota, criticism regarding large-scale livestock industries, corresponding resistance of farmers and the regret of the province regarding the impasse of the livestock industries all show how difficult this debate has become.
- Governments, entrepreneurs and social interest groups are involved in laden conflicts over expansion of livestock industries – mostly because of the perceived pressure in the area and the fear for worsening living conditions if the expansion continues.
- As such, it is certain that something has to be done. Now let’s have a look at the map: this is the region of Eindhoven – remember, even so again embedded in the larger urban fabric of the northwestern delta metropolis – and this is, although on municipal level, a representation of livestock farms in the area: extremely fragmented. As such, the challenges is threefold: 1. Creating an attractive living environment for the urban population; 2. Protecting valuable nature and 3. Providing space for these currently heavily compromised agricultural industries to develop.
- Vertical integration of production chains, that is, the physical co-location of feed mils, mother animals, animals for fattening and slaugher decreases the pressure of transportation of animals on the surroundings. This is not only safer in terms of veterinary risks associated with animal transport, it is also better for the animal itself as transportation is highly stressful. However, co-location implies a larger number of animals on a smaller area, and therefore requires among others better control over sanitary conditions and substantially better animal management systems to be able to secure animal health and wellbeing and to limit veterinary risks. This is where new technologies come in. At the same time, it is the subject of substantial debate with respect to scale, which is especially prevalent in the Netherlands. I will go into detail on this aspect later in my presentation.
- In order to increase the efficiency of agricultural production, exchange of rest- and by products as inputs for other product chains is an increasingly popular idea under the umbrella buzzword ‘circular economy’. Making this work requires a lot of new technologies for re-use to be developed – again often high-tech – and additionally requires physical co-location or ‘clustering’ of the industries to make re-use of waste products commercially viable.
- Finally, co-location ensures a better consolidation for agro-logistics, allowing for efficiency and decreasing pressure on the urban road network.
- Concentration or ‘clustering’ of industries might provide new opportunities for businesses to further expand and for other locations to be removed, but social resistance against large-scale developments, including a cluster, which would imply an even larger scale than previously present in the region, is subject to heavy debate. As such, clustering will not happen unless solid intervention takes place. And then, that’s only the physical dimension – as you all know, functioning as a cluster goes far beyond the challenges of simply co-locating.
- So, in the end, how will this cross-over develop towards the future? In Eindhoven region, initial preconditions are good: both high-tech and agro industries have strong representation in the area and the push for innovation is substantial. However, given that these are two separate worlds, their interaction is not self-evident: a true push or pull factor will be needed to generate an interest in bridging the gap between these two worlds which otherwise hardly ever meet. But it would appear that a sense of urgency is starting to develop: especially in the Netherlands, the pressure on the livestock industries to change and adapt has come to a climax. Something has to be done – and technology may help in achieving solutions, physically, but also through the new positive linkages between society and ‘industrial’ but simultaneously ‘trendy’ food, such as 3D printed foods and so-called molecular cooking, mousses, ‘spaghettis’, liquid-filled balls and foams all bear witness of its adoption in nearly every self-respecting restaurant in the Dutch context. From the perspective of the industries, on the other hand, the pull factor originates in simple economics: lately, food has increasingly shown up on political agendas as food security issues are gaining urgency, thereby also emphasizing the unprecedented scope of a very certain, predictable market development: 9.5 billion people will inevitably need to be fed. As this is also being picked up by financial investors all over the world, the high-tech industry may likewise be expected to increasingly recognize the potential of this sector as a market of the future.
- Now, how to get to a new agrosector? First and foremost, I believe we should conclude that despite not presenting itself as a cluster, the agro sector really is a cluster in the sense that chain partners obviously interact and collaborate intensively, albeit through a long-standing, traditional network. Yet, this region may be proud of its innovations and contribution to the livestock industries worldwide. In terms of its present conflict, the agro sector may benefit from physical co-location in order to improve its impact on spatial quality. However, it should be noted that such clustering is not self-evident and that especially in the face of current social resistance, without government facilitation or intervention, physical co-location – which also implies new challenges for individual entrepreneurs – is unlikely to take place. Moreover, even within the government, this will require some innovation: the challenge is regional rather than municipal – no single municipality will volunteer to attract more livestock as this implies trouble in explaining this to its inhabitants. Secondly, the agro sector may be rather physically clustered and use its own networks, in terms of image, a lot may still be won and facilitation of the formation of an ‘image’ as cluster may help in this respect – both physically and organizationally. At present, the region is competing against itself, by means of tens of smaller initiatives trying to profile individually: greenports, business parks and valleys – all in that same northwest European Delta Metropolis which on the world market is leading but still keeps inward oriented. In terms of organizational vicinity, the worlds of agro and high-tech remain rather far away from one another: traditional agro-networks are hard to integrate into, whereas the ‘urban’ networks of high-tech professionals are equally inaccessible for producers. Nonetheless, these groups may well find each other when confronted with specific problems. As such, urgencies such as the present one, whether coordinated or not, may facilitate in bringing these sectors together. With all this, I hope to have given you a little teaser of the promises and challenges that the agrifood and high-tech cross-over holds, both in the Netherlands and worldwide. Thank you, and once again, as a proud member of the TCI 2016 organizing committee – I hope to see you in Eindhoven next year to continue this discussion!