Towards a Knowledge Based Bio-Economy: New Challenges, Opportunities and Solutions (Keynote Speech)

Abstract

The world is confronted with a range of economic, social and environmental issues, challenging the sustainable development in the future. The greatest challenge is how to maintain global food security in line with growing population producing enough nutritious food that everyone can access and doing so sustainably. This will increase the demand for agricultural, fishing, forestry and other related products, which largely depend on limited resources such as land, water and human capital. At the same time, the exploitation of ecosystems and the excessive use of non-renewable resources including fossil fuels are considered as main causal factors contributing adversely to the rapid global climate changes taking place. All these factors will contribute negatively on global sustainable development. The bio-economy generally defined as "knowledge based production and utilization of biological resources and innovative biological process to sustainably provide goods and services across all sectors”, has gained recognition as an appropriate policy option to mitigate multi-faceted global issues while ensuring the sustainable development. The rapid improvement in life sciences including biotechnology and nana-technology, with well-coordinated policy and research environment at the national level has contributed to the significant improvement in the bio-economy in the recent past. The new strategy has been gaining its momentum gradually and firmly across the world. As a result, the first global Summit on Knowledge Based Bio-economy (KBBE) was held in 2015 in order to promote this concept considering its potential for resilience, carbon neutrality, renewability, reusability and multi-functionality. Further, the "Smart-KBBE” would help to create a World Bank recommended "Climate-Smart Agriculture System" and to achieve several United Nations (UN) targeted "Sustainable Development Goals" (SDGs) to be reached by 2030. As Sri Lanka is not an exception to emerging challenges discussed, the bio-economy has also gained domestically. However, the potential of the bio-economy has not been fully exploited due to a lack of comprehensive approach to tap the available bio-resources. Since Sri Lanka is in the process of accelerating its growth momentum, the time has come for the country to lay its economic foundation right In this context, the knowledge-based bio-economy would be an appropriate policy option available for sustainable development in Sri Lanka.