Three (out of six) ideas that are changing the world - and agriculture.

Just before the end of the year and right on the cusp of a new decade, the Christian Science Monitor's editors published an insightful group of articles: 6 Ideas That Will Change The World.

Of the six main items -- several lesser trends also were noted -- half either directly or indirectly affected agriculture. They were:

Africa's agricultural expansion. We've had items about this in the past on our web site and in this blog, but this trend goes largely unreported in U.S. ag magazines. In short, other countries -- Saudi Arabia, China and South Korea among them -- have bought up or leased hundreds of thousands of acres of land in various African nations, then invested in infrastructure needed to grow and transport crops. As examples, the Monitor noted that:

• Saudie Arabia has pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into production sites in Ethiopia.
• China has invested $800 million in rice farms in Mozambique.
• South Korea announced it will develop a quarter of a million acres of grain production in Tanzania.

Think about it. All three nations need more farm production than their land will allow, and they have capital to "off-shore" their farming interests. All manner of questions are being raised about whether these developments are good or bad for Africa. China has a spotty record in terms of propping up some oppressive governments when it has developed other raw materials in Africa. Questions also have been raised about the long-term effect on the encironment.

But two things are certain. Africa still has vast stretches of aerable land that either isn't farmed or is tended at only subsistence levels. And every time an acre of African farmland goes into this kind of production, it will compete with U.S. producers, either directly or indirectly, for global market share.

Japan and the rise of computers. With a rapidly aging population and an abhorrence for foreign workers, Japan spends billions every year on robotic research. The research also has moved well past the assembly line and into public areas. At some hospitals, a robotic greeter waits at the door to direct visitors to the right location. Another helps patients with physical rehabilitation. Another robot under development fights fires. The research tends to focus on dirty, menial tasks, including rice planting, a hands-on chore that involves transplanting seedlings into paddies. The cost of a GPS-guided rice-planting robot is still high - about $90,000. But that's less than half what it was just a few years ago.

The emphasis is on autonomy, putting robots into an environment and giving them some ability for sizing up situations and making decisions.

Which brings us to the U.S. citrus industry. Grower organizations in both California and Florida have funded long-term projects aimed at developing robots that can move through orchards, recognize ripe fruit and then pick it. That sounds at first like a simple chore, but vast amounts of programming are required just so a robot's visual sensors can detect the shape of an orange and then detect its color in various lighting conditions. By comparison, it's probably easier to fire a cruise missile from 500 miles away and have it enter a building through a specific side window.

Any strides the Japanese make in robotic autonomy will eventually affect how machines operate on U.S. farms. Maybe not next year, but the technology continues to evolve.

Coming soon: more Chinese? For three decades, China's one-child-per-family dictate spurred economic growth. But China has now reached the point that, at least in some areas, it is encouraging families to have two children. The reason: China's population is aging twice as fast as ours, and the nation faces the prospect that by 2050 there will only be 1.7 active workers for every pensioner. Beyond that, couples limited to one child have long-preferred sons, so abortions have left the country with a higher ratio of male to female babies - 120 to 100, on average, which is the highest in the world. At that rate, the Monitor noted, 15% of Chinese men will be unable to find brides within 30 years.

Lifting of the one-baby restriction has taken place only in limited locations. But 70% of Chinese women would have two or more children, given the chance, according to one survey.

If China loosens this limitation further - and demographers say the country probably has no choice - the effect will be even more mouths to feed in the future, meaning more demand for ag commodities. Beyond that, a larger population could push at least some farmland out of production, further limiting China's ability to produce its own food.

- Owen Taylor