--- title: "Climate Change and Gene Editing Are Spurring a Tech Boom in Agriculture" description: "Powerful investors are convinced that the next hot investment opportunities are in high-tech agriculture, from gene editing to irrigation." date: "2018-10-15" modified: "2018-10-15" authors: - name: "Jon Christian" job_title: "Executive Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/agriculture-high-tech-investment" categories: - "Agriculture" - "Climate Change" - "Environment" - "Science & Energy" tags: - "agriculture" - "food valley" - "the digest" - "Tony Fadell" - "wageningen university" --- # Climate Change and Gene Editing Are Spurring a Tech Boom in Agriculture ![]() *\Image: Deepfield Robotics\* ## Food Founders You might know Tony Fadell as the charismatic founder of Nest Labs or as the man who helped create Apple's iPod. But these days, according to a [compelling new *Financial Times* story](), the forward-thinking investor has his sights set on agriculture, and he's not alone. "All the big agricultural companies are like the mainframe IT companies of the 70s — waiting to be disrupted," Fadell told the *Times*. ## Meat Space The future of agriculture could lie in Europe, where the Netherlands's Wageningen University has earned the area the cheeky nickname "Food Valley" for the disruptive role its research and startup ecosystem is starting to play in the next food revolution. According to the *Times*'s reporting, Food Valley is adept at moving innovations from academic labs to startups in a brisk pace. When a lab at Wageningen discovered a new way to weave soy fibers into meat-like slabs, they quickly partnered with eight companies, including a poultry processing venture backed by Warren Buffett, to bring the product to market. The plan is to sell the slabs to consumers in just a few years. ## Disruptive DNA Investors like Fadell see an explosive mixture of forces that they believe will shape the future of food. There's the developing world's [growing demand for protein](), the [looming threat of climate change](), plus gene editing, artificial intelligence, and other new technologies that could revolutionize the space. This belief that the food industry is ripe for a shakeup isn't a fringe position, either: Global investment in agtech [spiked last year]() as investors started pumping money into later-stage foodtech startups. Agricultural entrepreneurs aren't just providing tech moguls with promising investment opportunities, though — in the face of [catastrophic environmental damage](), they might prove to be our only hope at staving off global devastation. **READ MORE:** [Future of Food: Inside Agritech’s Silicon Valley]() \[*Financial Times*\] ***More on food security: [To Feed a Hungry Planet, We're All Going to Need to Eat Less Meat]()*** ## Author I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()