Science as Social Enterprise: The CAMBIA BiOS Initiative

Abstract

Nearly four billion people live on daily incomes lower than the price of a latté at Starbucks. Most of them make dramatically less than that—and from that income, they must acquire their food, their medicine, their shelter and clothing, their education, and their recreation, and they must build their future and their dreams. Their lives, and the quality of their lives, hinge on biological innovation. Biological innovation is the ability to harness living systems for our social, environmental and economic well-being. It is the oldest and most fundamental form of human innovation, involving as it does the getting of food, the striving for health, the making of homes, and the building of communities. The wealth created over the millennia through the domestication and husbandry of plants and animals has powered human society. Of all areas of biological innovation, agriculture is the most important, affecting our environment, our health, our economies, and the fabric of our societies. The world’s poorest nations depend largely on agriculture for their economic survival as well as their food, fuel and fibre. The challenges of innovation to create and sustain productive and environmentally sound agriculture are even more pronounced in these societies. Any failure to do so has enormous implications for the global community, over and above the social, economic, and environmental impacts.