It's not too early in the new year to present the first thoughts on new business ideas. I suspect I will have a few more after I visit the CES show in Las Vegas, but the point of this post is to remind the reader that new businesses come from areas beyond consumer electronics, social media and IT.
A story from NPR this morning brought my attention back to several themes I follow. The UN World Food Price Index reached a record high in December 2010, as shown below.
I do not think it is a coicidence that the last record high was June 2008, just before the start of the economic crisis. Food demand is substantially affected by economic factors. Therefore, not only commodity prices but also food prices will be increasing as the large emerging countries (Brazil, China, India, Russia etc.) and parts of Latin America and Africa experience constantly higher levels of per capita income in the next 10-20 years.
Therefore, I think there are very large new business opportunities, such as:
- Agricultural technology that improves crop yields, reduces water consumption in farming and lowers distribution costs
- Food processing technology that lowers production costs, reduces the risk of bacteria and other disease agents and reduces the consumption of electricity
I would point out that this increased food consumption is also going to significantly accelerate the worldwide problem of water shortage and water management (World Water Council). Opportunities related to water purification, desalinization and waste water management, to name a few, may be even more attractive than in agriculture.
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