The four Fs of the knowledge-based BioEconomy – A homage to Christian Patermann

Abstract

Every discourse about the knowledge-based BioEconomy (KBBE) leads to identification of specific products that can be manufactured through advanced biology-based processes in a fashion more environmentally-friendly, more sustainable and more economically appealing than earlier procedures. Such products can be grouped in at least four types of tangible goods, the reference names of each of which—as entertained by Christian Patermann—starting by an F: food, feed, fuel, fibre. Since the first elaborations of the KBBE to the present time, major conceptual developments and scientific technologies have impacted the biotechnological practices and endowed the four Fs with possibilities that were not anticipated at the time. New scenarios have also emerged—paramount among which is climate crisis. In this context, what started as a strategy to backup the existing industrial system might end up being a phenomenal tool for a much needed revision of our mutuality with the natural world.