In the next 20 years industrial biotech will surge, according to a new analysis of The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The report, entitled The Bioeconomy to 2030, forecasts that biotech will grow from the current 0.5–1% to 2.7% of gross domestic product, driven mostly by industrial biotech. “We should really be concentrating on industrial and agricultural biotech because these are areas that are going to be extremely important in the future,” says report co-author David Sawaya, of the Paris-based OECD. Industrial biotech will contribute 39% to the sector agriculture, 36% and health, 25%. The numbers, however, are at odds with current R&D investment where 87% is focused on health and 2% on industrial applications. The report's potential weakness is that the data predate the economic crisis. The statistics were sourced from a 2008 US Department of Agriculture report, and these were, in turn, based in part on a 2005 presentation by Rolf Bachmann, then an analyst at global management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. To meet the report's predictions, the current 2% contributed by bio-based materials to the industrial chemical economy must rise tenfold. Growth will depend on rapid developments in fermentation techniques, favorable environmental legislation and high oil prices pushing for cheaper alternatives. “There might have been a bit of over-enthusiasm initially,” says Jens Riese a partner at McKinsey, Bachmann's collaborator at the time, “but the overall trend is heading there.”