Outside Forces Driving Change in Ag and Other Industries

At last week's Potato Expo, Forbes Magazine Publisher and Columnist author Rich Karlgaard said there were two MegaTrends that will be driving change to agriculture as well as other industries.

The first is the increase in the global population in the next 30 years — especially the growth of the middle class.

Karlgaard: "One of the first things they want to do when they become middle class having come from poverty is they want to improve their diets. They want more choice. They want to eat out more. The second one that plays into to that is urban population. People moving from the hinterlands into cities of 500,000 or greater will grow to 2.5 billion between now and 2050. So when you think about the amount of people who are going to want new food choices, new restaurants, new grocery store options — it works really good for the potato industry."

Karlgaard continues with the second mega trend for ag producers to be aware of

Karlgarrd: "The second MegaTrend is simply the execrating growth and application of technology in every industry including agriculture. Which is already happen but will be even more so. Sensors, drones, automatous farm equipment that drives themselves, biotechnology that gives us more yield per water and per fertilizer foot print — all of those things have now really caught the attention of people who are normally not in agriculture but come from places like Silicon Valley. So the partnership between ag, the potato industry and technology entrepreneurs is exciting to watch."