The Emerging Bio-Economy: California Opportunities and Challenges in a Global Transformation?
The emerging bio-economy is about development strategies substituting renewable resources for non-renewable resources as inputs in products and processes. That can include renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar. This project focuses on the biological inputs, the substitution, for instance, of that which is grown for that which is mined, and the industrial
processes required to make that adjustment. We ask, can agricultural California take on a role as the foundation of a trajectory of growth?
The contemporary bio-economy is technology and knowledge driven. The tools that make it possible to encourage trees of construction strength emerge from the investments in science and technology, expressed in Silicon Valley in the North and San Diego/UCLA in the south. In that sense can the two valleys reinforce each other to sustain and broaden California growth and equitable development?
These notions are examined in Labor and Agriculture in California. That project has produced a set of analyses by UC Faculty and collaborators. The first chapters posted here look at California options and the Danish strategy rooted firmly in circularity and bio development.