DIGITAL DINNERS

How are new technologies – ‘big tech’ and ‘big data’ – changing the face of food-growing?

We are seeing platforms, such as Amazon or Ali Baba, moving into almost any marketplace because of their command of data. They can buy and sell from bricks-and-mortar stores, as Amazon’s doing now, while delivering groceries and, if they want to, speculating on commodities.

The next step for platforms may be the takeover of companies like [agrochemical giant] Bayer. We’re already seeing more and more links in the food chain becoming more concentrated. Seed, pesticide and fertilizer companies are merging. [The recent wave of mergers in the agricultural input sector saw the creation of Bayer-Monsanto, Dow–DuPont, and ChemChina-Syngenta.]

And the same change is happening with asset management companies such as BlackRock which has multi-trillion-dollar investments, massive quantities