Much economic research and teaching analyze individual or a few related markets (Corn and swine). Over the years, working on problems related to biofuels, water, and chocolate, I have realized that the supply of goods requires multiple activities linked by supply chains built to meet consumer demand. Take bread—the primary feedstock is wheat, which is shipped to a mill; then, it will move to a bakery and then to a store where the consumer will buy it. This is a very simplistic presentation. The production of bread is the integrated outcome of several symbiotic supply chains of seeds, farm machinery, water, transportation, and storage. Production activities produce waste, and the last one is the development of supply chains for waste removal. it would be desirable to reduce, reuse, or recycle the trash rather than be a source of pollution and cost. The supply chain generates economic values- transacting between the economic actors who participate in the supply chain and results in value chains.
The build-up of the circular bioeconomy, which will use natural resources and technology to produce goods and services sustainably, will require establishing multiple new supply chains. We can distinguish between innovation and product supply chains. The innovation supply chain will come with new solutions to problems, develop and upscale them, and then the product supply chain will implement them. The innovation supply chains may combine research at universities and research institutes and development and upscaling in start-ups or companies. All stages of the innovation supply chain may be done within a corporation. The product supply chains may include the production of feedstocks, processing, wholesaling, and retailing. There is a constant interaction between innovation and product supply chains, as lessons from the field and new consumers demand and inspire new innovative efforts.
Our energy and other sectors rely on petroleum and other non-renewables that contribute to climate change, are sources of pollution, and are not sustainable in the long run. The bioeconomy will eventually replace many elements of these systems. New developments and capabilities in biology, chemistry, agronomy, information sciences, engineering, and nanoscience provide us with capabilities that will enable us to have these transitions. But it will be a scientific, economic, and regulatory challenge. We must adapt and introduce new capabilities to establish efficient, affordable, and environmentally sustainable solutions, contributing to regional development and providing new employment opportunities. One of the biggest challenges is that supply chains contain multiple links, each as strong as its weakest link. The development of the bioeconomy may require solving numerous problems simultaneously. We saw it with electric cars. Introducing a new fuel, let’s say biofuel for jets or hydrogen for trucks, requires building technology and infrastructure to produce the fuel, transport it, build equipment that can utilize the fuels, a system for retailing, training users, and maintaining equipment. A snag in any step will delay the introduction of the system. Introducing electric cars depends on the availability of batteries, and electric vehicles will be environmentally sustainable once we have sufficient renewable power generation and storage capacities. Thus, the development of circular biotechnology requires investment in research and infrastructure in multiple supply chain elements- building a regulatory system enabling them to operate in harmony, train the workforce, and obtain financial resources to allow these activities.
Many product lines result from the bioeconomy. They include biomanufacturing of fuels, lubricants, and chemicals from plants, wood, and algae, protein and energy production from waste products, breaking plastic and using it as a feedstock, and producing plastics from plant materials and residues. We have already seen the production of pharmaceuticals using plants, and biological processes will be used for computing in the future. The bioeconomy will also launch the adoption of practices that will sequester carbon, and altogether, it will contribute to reducing GHG emissions and other types of pollution and generate new employment opportunities, many in the rural sector. For example, while Berkeley and other universities in California will provide much of the knowledge that will drive the development of the bioeconomy, the Central Valley, coastal regions, and other rural areas in California can flourish with the new opportunities it will provide.
The U.S. government has already invested significant money in research on the bioeconomy and Climate-Smart Agriculture, and more is to come. Berkeley can be a center for research on the bioeconomy. In particular, several of us envision a graduate group that will collaborate closely with Rausser College of Natural Resources, the College of Engineering, the College of Chemistry, the Goldman School of Public Policy, and perhaps Haas Business School and Berkeley Law School. This program will collaborate with the EBI and IGI. In the beginning, we expect to have a seminar series, a few graduate classes, maybe a master’s program, and collaboration that results in PhD efforts. I believe that this area will grow, and with educational efforts, grants, and working with the private sector, we will eventually be able to get several faculty positions across the board. I envision, for example, the educational program teaching graduate (and later undergraduate) students’ diverse topics like the economics and management of innovation and supply chain, life cycle analysis, foundations of modern agricultural systems, life science and chemistry basics appropriate to the bioeconomy, modeling and simulation for the bioeconomy, AI and the use of machine learning in the bioeconomy. This list reflects my biases, and my college can round it, but I think the bioeconomy will be a major sector in the U.S. economy. We can support it through research, teaching, and extension.
Expanding Berkeley’s footprint in the bioeconomy will require new resources. One possibility is to take advantage of the resources available at Richmond Field Station. The other is to collaborate with other campuses. I personally enjoyed my lifelong collaboration with colleagues throughout the U.S. and abroad on bioeconomy research. I am working with other scholars from UCs Merced, Davis, and Riverside, and we have established an excellent group working on revitalizing the Central Valley. We have the International Consortium on Applied Bioeconomic Research, showing global connections. LBL and other national labs are crucially important in this area. Berkeley should be a major center in this emerging field, which will play a major role in addressing climate change, protecting the environment, and improving food security and rural development globally.