BLOOMINGTON, Ill. (DTN) -- His career title may be futurist, but David Zach is hardly in the prediction business. Instead, Zach's message to a group of Illinois farmers focused on innovation and technology. He encouraged the audience to take a balanced look at the past, present and future when making decisions.

"What kind of future are you expecting? One that's calm and everybody gets along? Or one in which there is tension, but amazing productivity? Well that's the one you've got," he told attendees at the Illinois Commodity Conference, a meeting of the state's commodity groups and their members. Farmers from across the state came to talk about politics, markets, this year's growing season and what could be in store in the future.

"What this messy innovation means to you is disruption, unpredictability, resistance. What are the disruptions? The markets are going to be challenged. You don't know where the competition is coming from. You don't know where the markets are going to be, which ones will survive, which ones will fade. How will we grow things over the next 20 years?"

The world population is expected to hit 9 billion people by 2050 and most arable land is already in production, which means the agriculture industry needs to innovate and create new technology if they want to feed the planet.

That is, unless technology makes farming obsolete. Zach described a three-dimensional printer that's still in the prototype stage. The printer could turn plans for any object into the actual item at home. That means consumers could print whatever kind of food they want to eat.

He showed the room other prototypes that while fairly radical, could change the way information is gathered. He showed a picture of quarter-sized robots that act like ants -- they scatter until one finds food and then they swarm. He talked about how Japanese researchers are experimenting with putting tiny radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags -- which can be manufactured to be as small as powder -- in fish with the goal of tracing a fish all the way to its final sushi roll.

"They're just prototypes. The question is, what's the future of food and if at any point, you're looking at that and going 'that wouldn't work because ...' then you have to raise the question of what would have to change so that could happen? And how would it change the way we distribute food, commodities?"

Much of new technology, such as RFID tags, is designed to gather information. Perhaps someday those tags could be attached to seed corn and gather data on the plant throughout its growing cycle. Combine that with contact lenses with built-in digital displays and farmers could stand by the side of the field and gather all kinds of data on moisture, insects, infections, etc. That in turn could lead to better management decisions.

"What kind of data would you like to have if you knew you get it? Who else might be interested in that data? Which business are you in? You're in commodities, but is one of those commodities information?" Zach asked. "How do you rethink the marketplace in terms of having access to that information to ultimately sell it?" Heads nodded and people started talking at their tables.

Zach moved from technology to time, noting that no one knows the future, but people always want forecasts. Farmers want to know what the weather will be tomorrow, what the fat cattle market will look like next year and what their input costs will be next year.

"People always want forecasts. They want to remove uncertainty. Here's one way of increasing your ability to know what's going on: When you're looking at things, try to figure out if they're a fad, a trend or a principle."

Fads are short term and often become a big deal very quickly before fading fast. Trends develop and change slowly over time while principles remain steady over time. Figuring out what things are principles gives farmers steady ground to work from when making decisions about the future.

Zach said he thinks the future is overrated and that people should spread their thinking out to include the past and the present.

"The past has tremendous value. And my definition of futuristic is not the new stuff," he said. "How many of you have something from your ancestors -- grandparents, great grandparents? Something that has been around for a long time. Do you understand that's futuristic too? It will only grow in value because it has stood the test of time. It connects you across generations. It is the things that don't change that we must maintain, protect, repair so that we have something we can stand upon in the future."

Katie Micik can be reached at katie.micik@telventdtn.com

(AG/SK)

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