Human augmentation of ecosystems: objectives for food production and science by 2045

Current food production systems require fundamental reformation in the face of population growth, climate change, and degradation of health and the environment. Over the course of human history, every agricultural system that has emerged has featured some sort of trade-off between productivity and environmental load. These trade-offs are causing the planet to exceed the boundaries of its biogeochemical cycles and are triggering an unprecedented extinction rate of wild species, thus pushing global ecosystems to the brink of collapse. In this era, characterized as it is by human activity that can profoundly influence climate and the environment (i.e., the Anthropocene epoch), tipping points can be either negative or positive. While a negative tipping point can produce sudden, rapid, and irreversible deterioration of social and environmental systems, a positive tipping point can produce improved health and sustainable social-ecological systems. The key to promoting positive global tipping points is a thorough understanding of human activity and life history on an evolutionary scale, along with the comprehensive integration of science and technology to produce intelligent policies and practices of food production, particularly in the developing world (See Supplementary Material 1 summary for policymakers). Simply increasing the efficiency and scale of monoculture-intensive agriculture is unlikely to drive social-ecological change in a positive and sustainable direction. A new solution to the health-diet-environment trilemma must be developed to achieve a net positive impact on biodiversity through the anthropogenic augmentation of ecosystems based on the ecological foundation of genetic, metabolic, and ecosystem health. This paper discusses the fundamental requirements for sustainable food production on the molecular, physiological, and ecological scales, including evolutionary and geological insights, in an attempt to identify the global conditions needed for the primary food production to ensure we survive this century. Particular emphasis is placed on how to make extensive use of this planet's genetic resources without irretrievably losing them.