Trends Shaping the Future of Agrifood

In agriculture innovation is the main driver of productivity growth. Innovative technologies and methods have to help increase firms’ productivity in a sustainable way. Technology diffusion is important as developing new technologies for sustainable production processes. Current innovations can lead to define the composition of foods with impoverishment or enrichment of nutritional and sensory characteristics. New technologies play a central role in adapting agricultural practices to environmental change. New agricultural practices help to preserve environmental integrity. Competition for an alternative use of natural resources is increasing and agricultural practices and technologies will have to adapt to climate change and more extreme weather-related conditions. This multifunctional approach needs to be directed towards increasing knowledge about the relationship between microstructure, process, product characteristics and technological innovation to protect the quality and origin of products. Innovations are not enough if they are not accompanied by a regulatory environment conducive to business development. Think first of all about the issues of security, rationalization of controls and the embargo of bureaucracy. But also, to the sustainability of food production and the need for common rules on supply conditions in crucial international commodity markets for the development of certain products.