Yes. If we take both climate mitigation and climate adaptation seriously, I think the best answer is not one replacement technology. It is a layered food system in which different methods do the jobs they are actually good at.

Food production already accounts for roughly a quarter of global greenhouse-gas emissions and uses about half of habitable land, so the objective has to be more than simply maintaining today's yields.

My ranking of the most promising approaches

Approach	Best role	Climate resilience	Land efficiency	Likely importance
Improved conventional agriculture	Grains, pulses, oilseeds, potatoes	High if diversified	Very high	Essential
Agroforestry / forest gardens	Fruit, nuts, fodder, timber, perennial foods	Very high	Medium	Major
Regenerative/agroecological farming	Broad-acre crops and mixed farms	High	Medium–high	Major
Precision fermentation/bioreactors	Protein, fats, dairy/egg substitutes	Very high	Extremely high	Potentially transformative
Controlled-environment farming	Vegetables, leafy greens, herbs	Very high	Extremely high	Important but specialised
Aquaculture	Fish and aquatic protein	Medium–high	High	Important
Conventional intensive livestock	Some dairy/meat	Variable	Low	Reduced role
Extensive cattle ranching	Beef	Vulnerable	Very low	Much smaller role

The interesting thing is that this is actually quite close to what the IPCC recommends: diversification, agroforestry, mixed crop/livestock systems and ecosystem-based approaches can increase resilience, yield stability and sustainability under climate change.

1. Keep high-yield agriculture—but make it much smarter

I wouldn't want to abandon the Green Revolution.

That would create a huge land requirement and potentially force us to clear forests and other ecosystems to compensate for lower yields.

Instead, I'd retain the basic advantage of modern agriculture—very high production of calories per hectare—while changing how it is done:

• drought- and heat-tolerant crop varieties
• perennial and deep-rooted crops where appropriate
• precision fertilisation
• substantially better nitrogen efficiency
• improved irrigation
• soil organic matter and water retention
• cover crops and rotations
• integrated pest management
• greater crop diversity
• reduced soil erosion
• better weather and yield forecasting

The goal becomes high yields + resilience, rather than maximum yield at any environmental cost.

This matters because climate change will increasingly make agricultural conditions less predictable. A system that produces 10% more in a perfect year but collapses during drought may ultimately be inferior to one that produces slightly less but remains productive through extreme weather.

---

2. Agroforestry could become much more important

This is where I think your previous question about forest gardens/permaculture becomes particularly interesting.

I wouldn't replace all cereal agriculture with forest gardens.

But I'd put trees into far more agricultural landscapes.

For example:

grain field → grain + tree belts → silvopasture → orchard → vegetable production → woodland

rather than an enormous uninterrupted monoculture.

Trees can provide:

• shade
• wind protection
• soil stabilisation
• carbon storage
• habitat
• fruit/nuts
• fodder
• timber
• improved water infiltration
• potentially greater resilience to heat and drought

The IPCC gives agroforestry high confidence as an adaptation strategy because of its ability to increase resilience to climate risks.

But there's a critical caveat: don't maximise tree cover at the expense of food production everywhere. The optimal landscape is likely to be a mosaic.

---

3. Bioreactors may ultimately be the really disruptive technology

This is the one I'd watch most closely.

Imagine producing:

• milk proteins
• egg proteins
• oils
• mycoprotein
• microbial protein
• specialty fats
• vitamins
• food ingredients

in fermentation tanks rather than growing the necessary crops and animals over enormous areas.

You could potentially get enormous quantities of human-edible nutrition from very little land.

That could allow us to do something extremely valuable:

produce food more efficiently → require less agricultural land → restore the surplus land to forests, wetlands, grasslands and other ecosystems.

That is potentially much more important for climate and biodiversity than simply making agriculture marginally more efficient.

But I'd be cautious about assuming bioreactors will replace agriculture. They still need energy, nutrients and feedstocks. Their environmental advantage therefore depends heavily on having abundant low-carbon energy and sustainable inputs.

---

4. Vertical farming should be selective, not universal

I think vertical farming has been somewhat overhyped.

It makes enormous sense for things like:

• lettuce
• herbs
• leafy greens
• seedlings
• some high-value vegetables
• crops where local production avoids particular logistical/climatic problems

But growing wheat, maize or rice under artificial LEDs is a fundamentally different proposition.

You're taking sunlight, converting it into electricity, converting electricity into photons, and then converting photons into plant biomass.

That's an extraordinary number of conversion steps.

So I'd rather see vertical farms as urban/high-value vegetable factories, not replacements for the world's grain fields.

---

5. We should probably produce substantially less ruminant meat

This may actually be one of the biggest changes.

Cattle and sheep are particularly problematic because of methane, feed requirements and land requirements. Livestock and fisheries together account for about 30% of food-system emissions in one major global assessment, with livestock particularly important.

That doesn't mean zero livestock.

There are places where grazing animals make excellent use of land that can't readily grow crops. Animals can also fit into mixed farming systems and recycle some agricultural by-products.

But I'd expect a future climate-resilient system to have:

much less beef/lamb + more plants + more legumes + more fermentation-derived protein + some poultry/fish + strategically used livestock.

That would free up an enormous amount of land.

---

6. The biggest climate solution may actually be what happens to the land we no longer need

This is the part I find most compelling.

Suppose technological improvements and dietary changes allow humanity to produce the same amount of nutrition using substantially less agricultural land.

We shouldn't necessarily use the saved land to grow more food.

We could use it to rebuild:

• forests
• wetlands
• peatlands
• native grasslands
• riparian ecosystems
• wildlife corridors
• agroforestry systems

Agriculture currently occupies around half of the world's habitable land, so even relatively modest reductions in its land requirement could create an enormous ecological opportunity.

And this is why I wouldn't regard high-tech agriculture and rewilding as opposites.

They can actually be complements:

Produce food extremely efficiently on the land that is best suited to food production, and give the rest back to nature.

That's potentially much better than trying to make every hectare simultaneously produce food and provide every ecosystem service.

---

So what would my ideal future food system look like?

Something roughly like this:

Large-scale staple production
→ highly efficient, climate-resilient crops
→ precision agriculture
→ diverse rotations
→ substantially reduced fertiliser losses

Farm landscapes
→ hedgerows, ponds, riparian strips and tree belts
→ agroforestry
→ soil and water conservation

Perennial food systems
→ orchards, nuts, berries, perennial vegetables
→ forest gardens where ecologically appropriate

Protein
→ legumes
→ microbial/fermentation protein
→ aquaculture
→ poultry/eggs
→ relatively small amounts of cattle/sheep where they make ecological sense

Urban food
→ greenhouses and selected vertical farms
→ mainly fresh vegetables and herbs

Biotechnology
→ fermentation-derived proteins, fats and dairy/egg components
→ increasingly important as costs fall

Landscape outside agriculture
→ large-scale restoration of forests, wetlands, peatlands and grasslands

And underpinning all of it:

cheap, abundant, low-carbon electricity.

That's important because electrification makes several otherwise difficult things possible: fertiliser production, desalination, controlled-environment agriculture, food processing, fermentation, refrigeration and eventually synthetic/biological food production.

So I would not bet on “permaculture beats industrial agriculture,” nor on “vertical farms replace farms.”

I'd bet on industrial agriculture becoming much more ecological, while biotechnology takes over an increasing fraction of the jobs currently performed by animals and cropland.

That combination has a potentially extraordinary advantage: we could maintain or increase the amount of food available to humanity while using dramatically less land and putting much less pressure on the climate and natural ecosystems. FAO similarly frames the desired transition as more efficient, resilient and sustainable food systems combining agricultural innovation, biodiversity, ecosystem services and climate adaptation.

can you explain this

Sure. “Regenerative/agroecological farming” is essentially an attempt to make farming work more like a functioning ecosystem, while still producing substantial amounts of food.

They overlap, but aren't exactly the same thing.

Regenerative farming

The basic idea is:

Don't just extract nutrients and organic matter from the soil and replace them with synthetic inputs; maintain and rebuild the biological health of the soil.

A regenerative farm might use:

• Cover crops — plants grown between cash crops rather than leaving soil bare.
• Crop rotations — alternating crops such as wheat, peas, oilseeds and legumes.
• Reduced/no tillage — disturbing the soil less.
• Compost/manure — returning organic matter and nutrients.
• More diverse crops rather than a single crop year after year.
• Hedgerows and trees — providing habitat, reducing erosion and sometimes producing additional food.
• Integrated livestock — animals can graze cover crops or crop residues and return nutrients to the soil.
• Better water management — keeping more rainfall in the soil and reducing runoff.

The intention is to build healthy, biologically active soils that retain water and nutrients better.

Agroecological farming

Agroecology is broader.

It asks:

How can we design an agricultural system using principles from ecology?

So instead of thinking of a farm as:

soil → fertiliser → crop → harvest

you think of it as a network:

soil organisms ↔ plants ↔ insects ↔ animals ↔ water ↔ nutrients ↔ farmers

For example, instead of spraying an insecticide whenever an aphid appears, an agroecological system might deliberately maintain habitat for insects that eat aphids.

Instead of importing all nitrogen as fertiliser, you might grow clover or peas, whose symbiotic bacteria fix atmospheric nitrogen.

Instead of allowing rain to run off a bare field, you might have deep-rooted vegetation, organic matter and tree systems that increase infiltration.

A simple example

Imagine two wheat farms.

Conventional intensive approach:

plant wheat → apply fertiliser → herbicide/pesticide → harvest → repeat

This can produce extremely high yields.

Regenerative/agroecological approach:

cover crop → wheat → legume → wheat → cover crop

while maintaining:

hedgerows + beneficial insects + soil organisms + organic matter + reduced tillage

The second system isn't necessarily going to produce more wheat per hectare. That's an important point.

Its objective is to produce good yields while making the underlying agricultural system more resilient and reducing environmental damage.

And there's a big caveat

“Regenerative” doesn't automatically mean lower-carbon, higher-yield or better.

Some practices marketed as regenerative have mixed evidence. For example, no-till can improve soil properties and reduce erosion, but it doesn't automatically mean large amounts of carbon will remain permanently stored in the soil. And replacing fertiliser with manure can create other emissions.

Likewise, if regenerative farming reduces yields substantially, we may need considerably more farmland—which could cause more deforestation and biodiversity loss.

So I wouldn't advocate:

“Make every farm regenerative regardless of yield.”

I'd advocate:

Use ecological farming practices wherever they improve resilience and environmental performance without sacrificing too much productive capacity, and retain modern agricultural technology where it genuinely increases food production efficiently.

That's why I put “improved conventional agriculture + regenerative/agroecological practices” together rather than treating them as competing ideologies.

In fact, the most promising future may look surprisingly conventional from a distance: huge fields of wheat, maize, soy, etc.—but underneath them you have better genetics, precision fertilisation, cover crops, diverse rotations, healthier soils, integrated pest management, trees/hedgerows and much better water management.

Yes—but not indefinitely, and not with the same mix of technologies everywhere.

If by “current trajectory” you mean something roughly like a high-emissions, continued-warming world, then my previous answer needs an important qualification: adaptation can buy us a lot of time, but it cannot fully compensate for sufficiently high warming.

The IPCC is quite explicit about this. Current agricultural adaptations can potentially compensate for a substantial proportion of global crop losses up to around 2°C of warming, but their effectiveness declines as warming increases. Under high-temperature scenarios, negative impacts become substantially larger from mid-century onward.

The crucial distinction

There are really three different futures:

~1.5–2°C:
Our proposed system is quite plausible.

~2–3°C:
Still possible to maintain global food production, but it becomes much more dependent on irrigation, crop breeding, relocation of production, controlled environments, biotechnology and international trade. Some regions will experience serious losses.

~3–4°C+:
I would no longer be confident that simply making today's agriculture more regenerative/resilient would be enough. We would need much more radical technological adaptation, and some agricultural regions would become increasingly difficult or impossible to farm economically.

The IPCC estimates that under a very high-emissions scenario, more than 30% of current global crop and livestock areas could become climatically unsuitable by 2100, compared with less than 8% under a low-emissions pathway.

And we're already seeing the beginning of this problem: FAO and WMO reported in 2026 that extreme heat is increasingly threatening crops, livestock and agricultural workers, with the impacts expected to intensify.

This changes my preferred strategy somewhat

If I were designing a food system specifically for a 2.5–4°C world, I would put considerably more emphasis on technologies that decouple food production from local climate.

Something like:

1. Climate-resilient field agriculture

Still absolutely essential.

But we'd increasingly use:

• heat/drought/salt-tolerant varieties
• gene editing and conventional breeding
• precision irrigation
• protected soils
• diversified cropping
• water harvesting
• improved weather forecasting
• strategic relocation of crops

This remains the cheapest way of producing enormous quantities of calories.

2. Agroforestry and regenerative techniques

These become adaptation tools, rather than simply environmental improvements.

For example, trees can moderate heat, reduce wind, improve water infiltration and provide additional products.

But I'd be careful about making the system too dependent on rainfall. In areas where rainfall becomes unreliable, irrigation and water infrastructure may matter more than soil-management philosophy.

3. Bioreactors become increasingly important

This is where I think the future could become radically different.

Suppose a region becomes too hot or dry to economically grow enough cattle feed or oilseed.

Instead of abandoning that food entirely, you could potentially produce:

microbial protein + fermentation-derived fats + fermentation-derived dairy proteins

in a factory.

That factory doesn't care nearly as much whether the surrounding countryside is experiencing a drought.

It does, however, care enormously about electricity, water and raw materials.

So in a severe-climate future, abundant clean energy becomes part of the food system.

4. Vertical farming becomes a climate refuge

I would still not grow all our wheat in skyscrapers.

But imagine a region where outdoor temperatures routinely become problematic for vegetables.

You could grow the most climate-sensitive/high-value crops in:

greenhouses → climate-controlled farms → vertical farms

while concentrating outdoor agriculture on crops that tolerate the conditions.

That's much more sensible than trying to make every crop indoor.

5. Food production will move geographically

This is potentially one of the biggest changes.

Climate change doesn't simply mean:

“Everywhere gets worse.”

It means the geographical distribution of suitable agricultural climates changes.

Some currently marginal northern regions could become more productive, while some tropical/subtropical regions become much more difficult.

The problem is that moving agriculture isn't trivial. You need soil, water, infrastructure, labour, transport, political stability and suitable growing seasons.

The IPCC finds that current agricultural areas increasingly become unsuitable under high warming, while adaptation potential declines as warming rises.

---

The biggest problem isn't actually food production

It's simultaneous shocks.

Imagine several major grain-producing regions experiencing extreme heat or drought in the same year.

Normally:

US has a bad harvest → Brazil has a good harvest → global markets compensate.

But climate change increases the possibility of correlated extreme events.

The IPCC specifically warns that increasing concurrent climate extremes can produce simultaneous losses in major food-producing regions.

That's much more dangerous than simply losing 5% of global production.

It means the future food system needs redundancy.

You don't want humanity depending on:

“The world's wheat comes from these five places.”

You want:

many crops + many regions + many production technologies + strategic food reserves + international trade.

 do you see a role for hunting and gathering

Yes—but as a supplementary food system, ecological management tool, and cultural practice, rather than as a realistic replacement for agriculture.

The role could actually become more interesting under climate change.

1. Wild foods can add resilience

A diversified food system doesn't have to consist entirely of farms.

People can obtain food from:

• wild fish and shellfish
• game
• berries and other wild fruits
• nuts
• mushrooms
• edible plants
• seaweeds
• insects in appropriate regions

These sources aren't necessarily tied to the same agricultural risks as wheat, maize or soy.

For example, a drought destroying a cereal crop doesn't necessarily eliminate a population of wild nuts, fish or perennial plants.

But there's an important catch: wild food populations are themselves affected by climate change. Heat, drought, changing seasons, wildfires, ocean warming and habitat loss can all reduce their reliability.

2. Hunting could have a surprisingly useful ecological role

This is different from saying we should hunt because we need the calories.

In some ecosystems, humans already have to manage populations of large herbivores.

Consider a landscape with:

forest → deer → browsing → tree regeneration

If deer populations become too large, they can prevent young trees from establishing.

Carefully managed hunting can therefore sometimes serve two purposes:

food + ecosystem management.

In a future where we restore much larger areas of woodland and other semi-natural habitat, this could become more relevant.

But it has to be ecologically managed. Unregulated hunting can obviously produce exactly the opposite result—overexploitation and biodiversity loss.

3. Gathering may actually have more potential than hunting

There's an interesting distinction here.

Hunting a deer requires a lot of land to support relatively few animals.

But perennial plants can potentially provide substantial food without intensive cultivation.

Think:

hazelnuts
walnuts
chestnuts
berries
apples
wild garlic
mushrooms
seaweed
perennial greens

Some of these could exist in landscapes that aren't conventional farms.

This starts to blur the boundary between wild gathering, forest gardening and agroforestry.

You could deliberately create landscapes that look partly wild but are nevertheless extremely productive for humans.

4. The most interesting possibility is a “semi-wild” landscape

Rather than:

farmland | wilderness

you could have a continuum:

intensive crops → agroforestry → orchards/forest gardens → managed woodland → restored wilderness

And humans could obtain food across the whole gradient.

For example:

• wheat from intensive farmland
• potatoes from fields
• apples from orchards
• hazelnuts from agroforestry
• mushrooms from woodland
• berries from semi-wild areas
• fish from rivers/lakes/coasts
• occasional game from managed ecosystems

That's much more resilient than expecting one system to provide everything.

5. But it can't feed 8–10 billion people

This is the fundamental constraint.

Modern agriculture gets an enormous amount of food from sunlight by deliberately concentrating productive species into landscapes and protecting them from competitors.

A genuinely wild ecosystem is generally less productive in terms of food that humans can harvest.

And if everyone tried to obtain a substantial fraction of their calories through hunting and gathering, we'd rapidly encounter ecological limits.

So I'd rank it something like:

Agriculture: bulk calories
Agroforestry: food + ecological functions
Bioreactors: increasingly important protein/fat
Controlled environments: vulnerable/high-value crops
Fishing/aquaculture: aquatic protein
Hunting/gathering: supplementary food + ecosystem management

There's one particularly attractive climate-change scenario

Imagine that future humanity manages to dramatically increase agricultural productivity and reduce the amount of land required for livestock.

Instead of using the released land to grow even more crops, we restore much of it.

You could then have enormous landscapes containing:

woodland + wetlands + grassland + rivers + lakes + agroforestry + small settlements

People could harvest some of the natural biological productivity of those landscapes without converting everything into farmland.

That gives you something closer to a hybrid civilisation/ecosystem rather than the stark division we have today between intensively farmed land and protected wilderness.

And paradoxically, high-tech agriculture and hunting/gathering could therefore be complements rather than competitors: the more efficiently we produce essential calories on a smaller agricultural footprint, the more room there is for wild ecosystems—and consequently for sustainable wild-food harvesting.