The public disconnect with food and farming is a growing societal issue. The Corn Farmers Coalition seeks to reconnect us all with America’s family farmers. They play a critical role in our economy and at a more basic level…our sustenance.
Through innovation, technology, ingenuity and hard work farmers are meeting our growing needs for food, fuel, feed and fiber. And they are doing so with a shared commitment to feeding our families the most healthful food possible while protecting the environment.
Through technology and generations of accumulated experience today’s corn farmers have become the best in the world. Record crops are becoming common and family farmers are improving their environmental footprint by doing more with less. Even this year with challenging planting conditions our corn farmers are expected to grow more than 13 billion bushels of corn.
When I saw the article below in Agri-Pulse it made me remember how lucky we are in this nation to have such good and dependable farmers because as you can see, the challenges will not get any easier. Still, my money is on the American family farmers.
(Reprinted with Permission of Agri-Pulse. For a free 4-week trial go to www.agri-pulse.com)
‘Silo’ mentality a barrier to ending hunger, DuPont panel says
After more than a year of deliberation, an advisory committee appointed by DuPont to look at how to feed a fast-growing population delivered a report yesterday with the now-familiar narrative: food production needs to increase 70% by 2050 with little or no more land and water, and with more care for natural resources. But it also served up an often-overlooked admonition: it must be done without the ideological distractions that get in the way.
The committee, chaired by former Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., concluded that increased production of and access to food “requires an unprecedented level of cooperation between and leadership from private companies, governments, research entities, educational institutions, NGOs [non-governmental organizations] and farmers around the world.
Stakeholders can no longer work in what have become overly fragmented „silos‟,” members said. Those with a stake in the solution, the report concluded, have to “remain focused on the question of how to adequately raise productivity to meet the world’s food needs, rather than get distracted by historic disputes, such as biotechnology versus traditional crop breeding, organic farming versus conventional farming, or food versus fuel production.”
“We must focus on breaking down silos that have traditionally divided stakeholders,”
James Borel, DuPont executive VP agriculture and nutrition, said in a briefing at the National Geographic Society auditorium in downtown Washington. “We must come together with a common purpose in a goal of sustainable food security. The challenge “threatens the political and economic stability of the world,” he said “The problem is greater than one company can solve, greater than one country can solve.” Publication of the report was “the beginning of how we engage all stakeholders in closing the productivity gap,” Borel added.
“All of these issues are distractions,” Daschle said. “There is a growing realization that we’re going to need everybody – those who rely more on science and those who rely on organic.” He said that the committee focused on the need for farmers to produce food, feed, fiber and fuel, “we came to the realization that these are distractions but they are resolvable.”
Jo Luck, president of the Heifer International global development charity, appealed to NGOs leaders. “We’ve got to talk and move out of silos. We may disagree but we can work together.
Rather than get distracted by biotech, organic or food versus fuel, although they are central to how some people see the world food system, we have to learn how to manage these debates.”
Committee member J.B. Penn, chief economist of Deere & Co., said that the “enormity of the challenge” made clear that there was no single solution. “It can’t be only seeds or mechanization, but we have to look at the same time at policy and infrastructure and investment from farm to consumer across the entire food system,” he said.
Developing countries require “enormous investment in infrastructure, farm-to-market roads, irrigation, storage facilities and soft infrastructure,” such as marketing information and policy and legal structures.