Agriculture Meets Instaculture At Oxford Farming Conference

This years' Oxford Farming Conference gave some powerful political and commercial signals as to what lies ahead for the future of the rural sector. The market is changing in terms of what consumers expect from their food producers and supply chains.

Oxford delegates listened to thought provoking presentations from James Wong, the botanist and broadcaster, Eve Turow Paul the US food journalist and adviser and Mark Lynas the journalist and environment activist.

There was general consensus from these speakers that consumption of meat would fall over time. In terms of feeding the world, producing meat was an inefficient use of plant proteins. That said, I don't think anyone other than a very few are forecasting its total demise.

In fact, on the contrary, there are clear indicators that as wealth increases in some rapidly developing economies so does the demand...