Maintaining global biodiversity by developing a sustainable Anthropocene food production system

Abstract

Humans have appropriated modern (food and biomass) and ancient (fossil fuels) biological productivity in unprecedented quantities over the last century, generating the biodiversity and climate ‘crises’ respectively. While the energy sector is gradually addressing the underlying cause of climate change, transitioning from biological to physical sources of energy, the biodiversity and conservation community seems more focussed on treating the symptoms of human exploitation of biological systems. Here, I argue that the biodiversity crisis can only be addressed by an equivalent technological transition to our food systems. Developing three scenarios for future technological and agricultural developments, I illustrate how using renewable physical sources of energy to culture animal products, microbes and carbohydrates will enable humanity to circumvent the inefficiencies of photosynthesis and the conversion of photosynthetic materials into animal products, thus releasing over 80% of agricultural and grazing land ‘back to nature’. However, new political will, governance structures and economic incentives are required to make it a reality.