While technology has revolutionized the world, it can never replace human emotion and communication, a Virginia Tech professor said Monday at a statewide agricultural summit in Roanoke.

"We get so enamored by information technology that we forget it's all about people," said Jesse Richardson, associate professor in urban affairs and planning at Virginia Tech.

"All the technology melts in the wake of a mother's tears as she agonizes over how to transition the farm to the next generation and treat all the children equitably," he said.

Richardson's comments were in response to a presentation Monday about seven "revolutions" that have been and will be influencing world leaders and policymakers - including those in agriculture - in the next 20 years.

The other six are population, conflict, governance, information, resources and integration.

Jay Farrar, senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., presented this thought-provoking "revolution" analysis to about 150 attendees of the Virginia Agriculture Summit at the Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center.

Another Virginia Tech professor said he'd add an eighth revolution: "public good."

"The pace of growth and the content of our body of knowledge can be and will be driven by the extent to which our local, state and national policies understand public goods," said Wayne Purcell, professor of agriculture and applied economics.

He said a public good benefits all, and the private, for-profit sector will not necessarily provide public goods.

"Education is a public good. Clean water is a public good. Soil conservation is a public good. Safety and security are public goods," Purcell said. "I do not want to see all of the new technologies coming from private labs. We need to have good, publicly developed science in safety of prescription drugs, in the oversight of the safety of new foodstuffs, in the relationship between what we eat and our immunity to chronic diseases, and in a host of other areas that affect us directly."

Farrar said water will be the most serious resource scarcity in 2025. Populations are growing quickly in a number of geographical areas incapable of providing adequate water.

He noted 13,500 people globally now die every day because of poor water supplies.

He also talked about falling water tables, rivers running dry and the effects of drawing water from lakes.

It's a huge issue for Purcell and Richardson, too.

California's economy is bigger than those of most countries, and a significant part of that is based on water that turns the desert to an oasis, Purcell said. But the Colorado River does not offer an infinite supply.

What about Virginia?

"Virginia is struggling to develop a water supply plan," Richardson said.

He's on a committee that is forming regulations requiring local governments to come up with local water supply plans. Those plans would ultimately form a new state water supply plan for Virginia.

Farrar also cited alarming numbers in population growth. Come 2025, 7.8 billion people are expected to live in the world.

Against that backdrop, it's not unusual to hear farmers, local politicians and developers discuss developmental pressures.

Development is inevitable, Richardson said. But he fears the continual trend to push development into suburban and rural areas will destroy farmland. Local government leaders need to put away their parochial concerns, stop pushing development over to their neighbors and adopt a regional approach, he said.

"We need to concentrate development in cities, towns and villages," Richardson said.