3FOOD

Third Industrial Revolution Consulting Group
farmer, the shareholders absorb the loss with diminished weekly deliveries of certain foods.
This kind of peer-to-peer sharing of risks and rewards binds all of the shareholders in a common
enterprise. The Internet has been instrumental in connecting farmers and consumers in a
distributed and collaborative approach to organizing the food supply chain. In just a few years,
community supported agriculture has grown from a handful of pilots to nearly three thousand
enterprises serving tens of thousands of families.
The CSA business model particularly appeals to a younger generation that is used to the idea of
collaborating on digital social spaces. Its growing popularity is also a reflection of the increasing
consumer awareness and concern about the need to reduce their ecological footprint. By
eliminating petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides, CO 2 emissions from long-haul food
transport across oceans and continents, and the advertising, marketing, and packaging costs
associated with conventional Second Industrial Revolution food production and distribution
chains, each shareholder comes to live a more sustainable lifestyle.
Finally, new cutting edge developments in the life sciences are opening up vast new
opportunities for the agricultural sector. The fiber industry is introducing new biological based
products as substitutes for petrochemicals in packaging, construction materials, enteric
coatings for pharmaceutical products, and filaments for 3D fabrication and manufacturing,
raising the prospects of additional income generation for farmers, growing specialized fiberbased
materials that can replace petrochemicals in a range of commercial fields, along side
conventional food crops. In the Third Industrial Revolution era, it will be critical to find the
appropriate balance in using agricultural land for both food production and fiber production
that can substitute for petrochemical products.
STATE OF PLAY AND LUXEMBOURG VISION
Luxembourg’s food and agricultural contribution to GDP is approximately 0.3 percent. The gross
value added from the agriculture sector has fluctuated over the past two decades from a high
of €164 million in 2002 to a low of €80 million in 2009. 119
Value Added Production
The chart below indicates the production value from Luxembourg’s agriculture sector. Milk
(26.5%) and forage plants (28.4%) represented more than half of the Luxembourg agriculture
sector’s total value.
119 Source: Service d’Economie rurale, Luxembourg
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