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Food 5.0: How We Feed the Future
Food has become the new religion. While denominations such as paleo, vegan, and organic debate which is "the way," we're ignoring a truth that affects us to support a population nearing 10 billion by 2050, agriculture must become infinitely sustainable.
To feed the world, we have to grow 10,000 years' worth of food in the next thirty years, which means farmers worldwide must increase food production by 60 to 70 percent.
This book is about the small percentage of those "farmers of consequence" being called upon to grow the vast majority of the world's staple food supply. While mighty in their ability, they need support from a general public that increasingly has no idea how they operate.
In Food 5.0, Robert Saik takes you on a journey from the "muscle era" of farming to a future where the convergence of new technologies like sensors, robotics, and machine learning make infinite sustainability achievable. With the veil lifted on modern agriculture practices, you'll be inspired to contribute to a culture where farmers can adopt the science and tools they need to carry out their mission of feeding the planet.
To feed the world, we have to grow 10,000 years' worth of food in the next thirty years, which means farmers worldwide must increase food production by 60 to 70 percent.
This book is about the small percentage of those "farmers of consequence" being called upon to grow the vast majority of the world's staple food supply. While mighty in their ability, they need support from a general public that increasingly has no idea how they operate.
In Food 5.0, Robert Saik takes you on a journey from the "muscle era" of farming to a future where the convergence of new technologies like sensors, robotics, and machine learning make infinite sustainability achievable. With the veil lifted on modern agriculture practices, you'll be inspired to contribute to a culture where farmers can adopt the science and tools they need to carry out their mission of feeding the planet.
- GenresNonfictionFoodScience
250 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 13, 2019
47 people are currently reading
198 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
February 11, 2021
Overall, I am on the fence about this book. On the one hand, the author raises some important issues about the sustainability of food production. On the other, a significant part of the book is a rant against the consumers of organic food. While the concerns may be valid, I think there is too much emphasis on that.
August 16, 2019
Author Robert Saik concludes his just-released book Food 5.0 with the following observation — “I have immense faith in our farmers to feed the future…we just have to let them.”
The book is aimed at the 99.8 per cent of the population who Saik figures have no on-the-ground knowledge of modern agriculture and explains how farmers can provide the rapidly-growing global population with a safe, reliable, affordable, environmentally sustainable food supply. It should also be of interest to people in agriculture because of his well-presented explanation of where farming has come from and is headed.
He outlines his background as an Alberta farm buy and his ongoing role in agriculture to the point where, among other things, he is CEO of Dot Farm Solutions of Regina, which is the marketing arm for an autonomous robotic farming platform, and Founder of AGvisorPRO, a knowledge platform providing instantaneous connectivity between farmers and agricultural experts. He knows what he’s talking about and explains it well.
The book describes the five stages of agriculture starting with human and animal power and concluding with 5.0, the era we’re just entering that will bring drones, robots and other technologies to the fore enabling farmers to be more productive and their farms more sustainable.
He explains in considerable detail the role of science in agriculture with the advancement in pesticides and GMOs, which he calls the Generally Misunderstood Organism, and now the advanced technology.
Along the way he rants about the anti-agriculture claims that annoy him the most. “My hackles rise when I hear people say farmers want to ‘douse’ their crops with chemicals or ‘slaughter’ their land with fertilizer. Their comments make no sense because chemicals and fertilizer are expensive. Farmers have to operate on razor thin margins, and consequently the judicious application of nutrients is important.”
With the global population expected to reach 9 billion or more by 2020, the challenge is “is to figure out how to feed them. It's going to take all the tools in our tool box to feed this population. And we need to ensure that we do so in a sustainable fashion,” he says. “In fact, so long as we have people on the planet, we must ensure that agriculture is infinitely sustainable.”
Saik says agriculture is already a leading user of new technology from as self-driving tractors to sensor technology to artificial intelligence to bioengineering. In other words, agriculture has come a long way from a horse-drawn plough or a small red open seat tractor.
“Agriculture today is an extremely sophisticated business of high risk yet still close to 97 or 98 percent of farms of consequence are family farms. Don’t add a girl with pig-tails and a freckle-faced boy to your bib-wearing farmer fantasy. It's a family business, an incorporated business of consequence that needs to operate in a sustainable manner.” Or as he adds, “it’s not your grandpa’s farm anymore.”
Too many people are “quick to criticize big ag, factory farms, and science such as GMO’s, without understanding the history, science, and economics behind those modern, technological advanced farming practices.”
If you’re an outsider with the least bit of curiosity about where your food comes from, this book provides a lot of information about how agriculture has changed over the years and the many steps being taken to make it sustainable. It also responds to a lot of the unfounded social media attacks on agriculture and puts some badly needed context to issues we hear about regularly.
Or as he concludes, “We’re entering the most critical phase of agriculture on the planet today, and we should be talking
about the possibilities for farming and food.”
The book is aimed at the 99.8 per cent of the population who Saik figures have no on-the-ground knowledge of modern agriculture and explains how farmers can provide the rapidly-growing global population with a safe, reliable, affordable, environmentally sustainable food supply. It should also be of interest to people in agriculture because of his well-presented explanation of where farming has come from and is headed.
He outlines his background as an Alberta farm buy and his ongoing role in agriculture to the point where, among other things, he is CEO of Dot Farm Solutions of Regina, which is the marketing arm for an autonomous robotic farming platform, and Founder of AGvisorPRO, a knowledge platform providing instantaneous connectivity between farmers and agricultural experts. He knows what he’s talking about and explains it well.
The book describes the five stages of agriculture starting with human and animal power and concluding with 5.0, the era we’re just entering that will bring drones, robots and other technologies to the fore enabling farmers to be more productive and their farms more sustainable.
He explains in considerable detail the role of science in agriculture with the advancement in pesticides and GMOs, which he calls the Generally Misunderstood Organism, and now the advanced technology.
Along the way he rants about the anti-agriculture claims that annoy him the most. “My hackles rise when I hear people say farmers want to ‘douse’ their crops with chemicals or ‘slaughter’ their land with fertilizer. Their comments make no sense because chemicals and fertilizer are expensive. Farmers have to operate on razor thin margins, and consequently the judicious application of nutrients is important.”
With the global population expected to reach 9 billion or more by 2020, the challenge is “is to figure out how to feed them. It's going to take all the tools in our tool box to feed this population. And we need to ensure that we do so in a sustainable fashion,” he says. “In fact, so long as we have people on the planet, we must ensure that agriculture is infinitely sustainable.”
Saik says agriculture is already a leading user of new technology from as self-driving tractors to sensor technology to artificial intelligence to bioengineering. In other words, agriculture has come a long way from a horse-drawn plough or a small red open seat tractor.
“Agriculture today is an extremely sophisticated business of high risk yet still close to 97 or 98 percent of farms of consequence are family farms. Don’t add a girl with pig-tails and a freckle-faced boy to your bib-wearing farmer fantasy. It's a family business, an incorporated business of consequence that needs to operate in a sustainable manner.” Or as he adds, “it’s not your grandpa’s farm anymore.”
Too many people are “quick to criticize big ag, factory farms, and science such as GMO’s, without understanding the history, science, and economics behind those modern, technological advanced farming practices.”
If you’re an outsider with the least bit of curiosity about where your food comes from, this book provides a lot of information about how agriculture has changed over the years and the many steps being taken to make it sustainable. It also responds to a lot of the unfounded social media attacks on agriculture and puts some badly needed context to issues we hear about regularly.
Or as he concludes, “We’re entering the most critical phase of agriculture on the planet today, and we should be talking
about the possibilities for farming and food.”
January 4, 2024
Food 5.0: How We Feed the Future by Robert D. Saik.
3/5 rating. 160 pages.
Book #62 of 2020. Read August 30, 2020.
This book is about a Wizard (in Charles Mann's sense) looking at agriculture's past and future.
Robert looks at the past of agriculture (Food 1.0-4.0) and the future of our food at 5.0. Robert does a great job of looking at some of the ideas that are going to help move us forward. Obviously, with estimates of our population increasing by 50% before leveling off, a lot needs to be done to feed all of these people. I appreciate that Robert is open to looking at every avenue that agriculture can take that will require the least energy in for the most food output.
My issue with the book is that he seems to whitewash the downsides of agriculture. He rightly defends many practices that have become lambasted by various groups for various reasons, instead looking at the science behind why many of these are wrongly demonized. Unfortunately, he goes further than the science warrants on protecting some of the atrocities and environmental degradation that occur in animal agriculture. He says "I would be happy to set you up for a visit" to farms where reporters have been attempting to go for years; he then says he doesn't know why farmed salmon are bad even though I personally have read various accounts by scientists and authors explaining the issue of trawling our oceans and decreasing fish stocks to get feed for these farmed fish.
Overall, I like his general idea of striving for "infinite sustainability" in agriculture. This is 100% what we have to work towards to feed everyone while not wreaking (any more) havoc on our planet. This book just must be taken with a grain of salt. As Robert says, look at the facts to see where activists are going overboard in bashing potential new agricultural endeavors, but also review the other side and see their concerns to properly understand the issues from all sides.
Quotes:
"By 2050, all countries will need to increase food production by 60-70 percent."
"'Roughly for every percent of organic matter in a six-inch layer of soil, you will find twelve thousand pounds of carbon per acre.' Then I did some math and realized that for every 1 percent increase in organic matter, farmers would fix or sequester about twenty metric tons per acre of carbon dioxide..."
"In Canada, the national climate figures state that agriculture contributes sixty million metric tons (MMt) of greenhouse gases to the environment every year (this is from ALL sources: manure, soil, even enteric fermentation - cow burps). Agriculture also sequesters or stores 11 MMt carbon dioxide equivalent in the soil every year. AND - most people don't think about this - farmers store an additional 79 MMt of CO2 ever year in crops we grow, and these grains are shipped all over the world."
"Farmers can till the soil, releasing the nitrogen, and satisfy the short-term needs of the crops, but sacrifice the long-term structure and sustainability of the soil. Or, they can use fertilizers to provide nutrition to the plants. Properly used, fertilizers provide sustenance to crops, but used improperly, they can release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere."
"We need chemistries, organic and synthetic, that provide specific weed, insect, or disease control. We also need a way to sustain the soil with the nutrients and life it needs to produce healthy crops while reducing the environmental footprint."
"Today, no one should be deprived of the tools of agriculture that would allow them to farm more efficiently. To my dismay, I've seen some people in the developed world of North America and the European Union believe the best thing for small landholder farmers is to continue using the methods of the muscle era food production. Deeply rooted in colonialism, elitism continues to be prevalent in political policy that tries to keep Africa down by not promoting modern farming practices. Condemning people to the era of muscle food production is only good for those that don't have to do it."
"It got me thinking that perhaps the scarcest resource for a farmer is not water, or nitrogen, or even money. Maybe the scarcest resource for a farmer is access to knowledge and wisdom when he/she needs it? It may be that knowledge and wisdom provided to farmers in a timely manner may be the key to nourishing the planet and ensuring infinite sustainability."
3/5 rating. 160 pages.
Book #62 of 2020. Read August 30, 2020.
This book is about a Wizard (in Charles Mann's sense) looking at agriculture's past and future.
Robert looks at the past of agriculture (Food 1.0-4.0) and the future of our food at 5.0. Robert does a great job of looking at some of the ideas that are going to help move us forward. Obviously, with estimates of our population increasing by 50% before leveling off, a lot needs to be done to feed all of these people. I appreciate that Robert is open to looking at every avenue that agriculture can take that will require the least energy in for the most food output.
My issue with the book is that he seems to whitewash the downsides of agriculture. He rightly defends many practices that have become lambasted by various groups for various reasons, instead looking at the science behind why many of these are wrongly demonized. Unfortunately, he goes further than the science warrants on protecting some of the atrocities and environmental degradation that occur in animal agriculture. He says "I would be happy to set you up for a visit" to farms where reporters have been attempting to go for years; he then says he doesn't know why farmed salmon are bad even though I personally have read various accounts by scientists and authors explaining the issue of trawling our oceans and decreasing fish stocks to get feed for these farmed fish.
Overall, I like his general idea of striving for "infinite sustainability" in agriculture. This is 100% what we have to work towards to feed everyone while not wreaking (any more) havoc on our planet. This book just must be taken with a grain of salt. As Robert says, look at the facts to see where activists are going overboard in bashing potential new agricultural endeavors, but also review the other side and see their concerns to properly understand the issues from all sides.
Quotes:
"By 2050, all countries will need to increase food production by 60-70 percent."
"'Roughly for every percent of organic matter in a six-inch layer of soil, you will find twelve thousand pounds of carbon per acre.' Then I did some math and realized that for every 1 percent increase in organic matter, farmers would fix or sequester about twenty metric tons per acre of carbon dioxide..."
"In Canada, the national climate figures state that agriculture contributes sixty million metric tons (MMt) of greenhouse gases to the environment every year (this is from ALL sources: manure, soil, even enteric fermentation - cow burps). Agriculture also sequesters or stores 11 MMt carbon dioxide equivalent in the soil every year. AND - most people don't think about this - farmers store an additional 79 MMt of CO2 ever year in crops we grow, and these grains are shipped all over the world."
"Farmers can till the soil, releasing the nitrogen, and satisfy the short-term needs of the crops, but sacrifice the long-term structure and sustainability of the soil. Or, they can use fertilizers to provide nutrition to the plants. Properly used, fertilizers provide sustenance to crops, but used improperly, they can release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere."
"We need chemistries, organic and synthetic, that provide specific weed, insect, or disease control. We also need a way to sustain the soil with the nutrients and life it needs to produce healthy crops while reducing the environmental footprint."
"Today, no one should be deprived of the tools of agriculture that would allow them to farm more efficiently. To my dismay, I've seen some people in the developed world of North America and the European Union believe the best thing for small landholder farmers is to continue using the methods of the muscle era food production. Deeply rooted in colonialism, elitism continues to be prevalent in political policy that tries to keep Africa down by not promoting modern farming practices. Condemning people to the era of muscle food production is only good for those that don't have to do it."
"It got me thinking that perhaps the scarcest resource for a farmer is not water, or nitrogen, or even money. Maybe the scarcest resource for a farmer is access to knowledge and wisdom when he/she needs it? It may be that knowledge and wisdom provided to farmers in a timely manner may be the key to nourishing the planet and ensuring infinite sustainability."
December 15, 2022
Someone explain to this man the difference between a meme and a research-informed infographic.
I absolutely hated this. I was waiting the entire time to talk about food waste and the four paragraphs we get on it are completely dismissive in the most enraging way. The U.S. wastes 40% of our food! I am not anti-GMO and I never buy organic but ranting for 250 pages about why organic food sucks is not how we are going to solve hunger and feed our population. GMOs and new tech will be a huge part of our food future but to not even remotely touch on the HUGE elephant in the room shows a huge gap in understanding.
Also so blatantly inaccurate about agriculture's contribution to climate change. This is ironic because the author loves biotechnology and a huge selling point of this development tech is how we can decrease the climate impact of this sector.
At the very end, he tries to make the point about data and transparency by saying if your spouse is away at a conference, you want to check in with them about who they are meeting with and gather data and this is because you do not trust them. What???? Just because you cheat on your wife at conferences, doesn't mean everyone does. Some of us just genuinely love hearing about our spouse's career and like to show interest in their interests. JFC.
I love eating meat, I never buy organic, and I have no problem with GMOs or food cooked up in a lab but this book was still wildly offputting. Vegans and a few anti-GMO activists are not the reason that billions on this Earth face food insecurity. Just so misguided all around
I absolutely hated this. I was waiting the entire time to talk about food waste and the four paragraphs we get on it are completely dismissive in the most enraging way. The U.S. wastes 40% of our food! I am not anti-GMO and I never buy organic but ranting for 250 pages about why organic food sucks is not how we are going to solve hunger and feed our population. GMOs and new tech will be a huge part of our food future but to not even remotely touch on the HUGE elephant in the room shows a huge gap in understanding.
Also so blatantly inaccurate about agriculture's contribution to climate change. This is ironic because the author loves biotechnology and a huge selling point of this development tech is how we can decrease the climate impact of this sector.
At the very end, he tries to make the point about data and transparency by saying if your spouse is away at a conference, you want to check in with them about who they are meeting with and gather data and this is because you do not trust them. What???? Just because you cheat on your wife at conferences, doesn't mean everyone does. Some of us just genuinely love hearing about our spouse's career and like to show interest in their interests. JFC.
I love eating meat, I never buy organic, and I have no problem with GMOs or food cooked up in a lab but this book was still wildly offputting. Vegans and a few anti-GMO activists are not the reason that billions on this Earth face food insecurity. Just so misguided all around
November 25, 2021
Food 5.0 provides nice overview of the history of agriculture, the contemporary challenges and future perspectives.
On many occasions the book is too concise and fails to go deep enough to explain things sufficiently, which I found little disappointing. In addition, there are several shockingly erroneous statements that I found in the book (e.g. "A, T, C and G are the four key proteins that make up our chromosomes"), which further worsened the overall impression. I have no doubts about author's expertise, and would rather attribute these to poor editorial work, or lack of proper review.
Author raises multiple arguments against various interest groups (collectively referred as "activists"), particularly against those that condemn GMOs. While in general I tend to agree with the author, I didn't like the form he chose. Instead of the numerous short rants going across the entire book, author could summarize his views in a separate chapter and give the subject bit more space.
The best part of the book are the last few chapters which provide excellent and though provoking outlook on the future of agriculture, including precision agriculture, Ag data management and use of AI. This in particular makes the book really worth to read.
If you want to get quick insight into how agriculture evolved across the last century, and how it may look a decade or so from now, Robert Saik's Food 5.0 would be a great pick.
On many occasions the book is too concise and fails to go deep enough to explain things sufficiently, which I found little disappointing. In addition, there are several shockingly erroneous statements that I found in the book (e.g. "A, T, C and G are the four key proteins that make up our chromosomes"), which further worsened the overall impression. I have no doubts about author's expertise, and would rather attribute these to poor editorial work, or lack of proper review.
Author raises multiple arguments against various interest groups (collectively referred as "activists"), particularly against those that condemn GMOs. While in general I tend to agree with the author, I didn't like the form he chose. Instead of the numerous short rants going across the entire book, author could summarize his views in a separate chapter and give the subject bit more space.
The best part of the book are the last few chapters which provide excellent and though provoking outlook on the future of agriculture, including precision agriculture, Ag data management and use of AI. This in particular makes the book really worth to read.
If you want to get quick insight into how agriculture evolved across the last century, and how it may look a decade or so from now, Robert Saik's Food 5.0 would be a great pick.
December 17, 2024
There were a fair amount of grammatical errors throughout the book that disrupted the flow of the information provided. The biggest issue from this was the constant use of brackets earlier in the book to signify “men (and women)” worked on these farms. I think the flow would’ve been much better if there was a section at the beginner beginning detailing women’s contributions to farming and using gender neutral language to describe the farmers. He did do an excellent job of explaining the science and economics behind agriculture as he used everyday comparisons but expanded on them. Overall I do feel like I learned a lot about a field I know very little about.
March 29, 2020
Went through the whole book in 2 days, and was very disappointed.. incredibly biased view, not taking into consideration the vast body of science behind many futuristic practices.
There are very basic mistakes in simple calculations of protein content for foods (lentils vs. meat, in what was a very “meat diet” leaning comment agains vegans), pseudo-science for the defense of glyphosate, and much others..
There’s some merit to the experience, but the closed-mindedness really was disappointing.
There are very basic mistakes in simple calculations of protein content for foods (lentils vs. meat, in what was a very “meat diet” leaning comment agains vegans), pseudo-science for the defense of glyphosate, and much others..
There’s some merit to the experience, but the closed-mindedness really was disappointing.
July 4, 2020
https://www.goodreads.com/review/edit...#
I was loaned this book by a neighbour who had already shared it with several other neighbours.
I really enjoyed reading this book which gave me new insights into farming and what farming should be doing if it intends to grow enough food for the future needs of our planet. I'd recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the future of farming or how will be used to feed our growing population of plant Earth.
I was loaned this book by a neighbour who had already shared it with several other neighbours.
I really enjoyed reading this book which gave me new insights into farming and what farming should be doing if it intends to grow enough food for the future needs of our planet. I'd recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the future of farming or how will be used to feed our growing population of plant Earth.
August 16, 2022
3/5. Just okay. There are lots of other books on this topic, but this one was only 99c for the kindle. I enjoyed the parts about the history of agriculture (from the “muscle era” to now), and I agree with the author's perspective on genetic engineering/technology. The rest was meh.
March 20, 2023
I like the idea of the book, introducing the reader to the new potential technology in agriculture. What I didn’t like was the repetitive arguments that kept appearing and the author basically calling you stupid if you wanted to go any other route besides the one he proposed.
August 31, 2020
A good basis for someone who doesn't know a lot about Ag. Its a past-present-future set up with a lot of focus on future Ag tech, not a bad quick read.
July 24, 2023
Muy buen libro. Me cautivó desde la primera página.
Want to read
March 20, 2024good
June 8, 2020
I really should be more generous and give this book 4 stars. I learned a lot and I am very interested in learning more about AI, machine learning and autonomous agriculture. This book is the polar opposite of the small farmer or soil-centric farm books I’ve read recently. He talks about being pro-soil, but in the end his focus is enormous grain farm operations. Can we feed the world of the future without planting vast expanses of wheat, corn, soybeans, barley and canola? I have no idea. But I now really want to learn.
August 10, 2019
Food 5.0 is a great intro to some of the possibilities of the future of row crop agriculture for the uninitiated. With an easily digestible style the author walks you through how we have changed how we rais crops over the ages to give you a jumping off point to what a sustainable ag future could look like.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews