While helping my son with a school history project, I recently viewed the documentary Fog of War. This was a personal history and reflections of former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.

In this presentation he describes his personal involvement in some of the most horrific wartime events of the 20th Century. From the firebombing of Tokyo to the Cuban missile crisis to the Vietnam War, the film provides a behind the scenes look at the people and events that shaped some of the most momentous events in our history.

The Vietnam War was the first war I personally remember. Viewing that time with 40 years of hindsight changes one’s perspective.
McNamara, too, talked about how his perspective on the war has changed 40 years later. It got me to thinking. How will our world be viewed 40 years from now, and how wise and enlightened will our judgments seem to those who come after us?

Take, for example, energy. How will history view how our world dealt with the eventual depletion of the fossil fuel supply?

We have known for a long time that the oil and natural gas supply was finite, yet our world went on consuming it like a drunken sailor.
Technology has provided us with several energy substitutes, but we have been slow to adopt these new resources. Nuclear energy has been around for decades and ethanol is more than 20 years old, but the United States has been slow to develop these and other alternative energy sources.

The marketplace has given us plenty of warning yet most governments, ours included, have ignored these warning signs. In 40 years, our energy picture will likely look much different than today, but how will history paint our reaction to $125 crude oil and record high natural gas prices?

Did we learn to conserve? Did we invest in new technology? Did we sensibly manage the dwindling supply of fossil fuels? Or did the rich nations of the world buy up the energy, and eventually go to war over dwindling resources? Only time and history will tell.

It will also be interesting to see what history says about U.S. farm and food policy. At the early part of the 21st century, U.S. farmers are seeing increased production due to new technology. At the same time, world food demand is expanding, and there is an increased demand for biofuels.

Yet, efforts to improve agricultural trade among the world’s nations have failed as WTO trade talks collapsed due to an unwillingness by many nations to embrace freer and more open trade. Here at home, two years of negotiations have failed to provide a farm bill that addresses the new paradigms of agriculture. The bill that was passed by Congress last week is a political compromise that does little to address the emerging markets and technologies with which U.S. farmers are dealing.

In 40 years, will this be seen as a missed opportunity to foster more food production? A missed opportunity to provide great food availability and food sustainability for the world’s poorest nations?
A missed opportunity to provide a safety net for farmers that allows them to manage their risks, invest in new technology, and take advantage of new market opportunities? Only if we take a more practical and less political approach to farm policy can we avoid this judgment of history.

One of the conclusions of the McNamara film is that we should learn from our mistakes.

Given some of the problems we are now facing in Iraq War, it is obvious we have not learned from our mistakes.

If we are not careful, we are likely to repeat previous mistakes in our food, fiber, and fuel policies. History may judge us harshly if we cling to the policies and practices of the past as we face a different and dynamic future.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Gary Truitt may write to him in care of this publication.