By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

OAK BROOK, Ill. — Agricultural experts of various stripes pulled together earlier this month under the auspices of a nonprofit group to take a stab at figuring out the big issues agriculture will face over the next 30 years.

The single biggest issue is how agriculture will feed what is projected to be nine billion people in the world by 2040. The result of this brainstorming session is a 53-page report called The 30 Year Challenge: Agriculture’s Role in Feeding and Fueling a Growing World.

The meeting was organized by the nonprofit Farm Foundation and commissioned by United Egg Producers, National Pork Producers Council, American Farm Bureau Federation and several other groups.

“It was intended to identify what the challenges are in feeding a population of nine billion,” said Sheldon Jones, vice president of the Farm Foundation. “It doesn’t take a position.

“Hopefully this will serve as a vehicle for delving into this more in total. We don’t lobby or necessarily take sides in a dilemma or problem. The idea was to take a 30-, 40-year view.”

Wyatt Thompson, an assistant professor of agricultural economics at the University of Missouri-Columbia, attended the brainstorming sessions, took notes and wrote a draft of the report.

What stood out for Thompson were six recurring themes: global financial markets and recession, global food security, global energy security, climate change, competition for natural resources and global economic development.

Thompson used these to organize the report into sections. Both he and Jones emphasized the goal of the brainstorming sessions was not to issue specific policy recommendations, but to lay out a broad, bird’s-eye view of the problems and possible answers.

For example, Jones said California’s Proposition 2 was discussed, which mandates how egg-laying chickens are to be raised. He said that issues, such as general public knowledge of the agricultural sector, were discussed in the context of animal welfare.

He said that for him, food security is central as an issue. Does the country want to have a situation where it has to import a lot of its food? If not, then agriculture is going to have to work on communicating better with the public about its practices, Jones said.
Thompson said there’s “certainly a great deal of uncertainty about climate change and other issues,” but qualified his statement by adding “there’s growing certainty” about climate change.

“To me it was quite an opportunity to hear these experts talk about these issues,” Thompson said.

He added there are “always tradeoffs” to any policy direction, as well as “unintended consequences.” For example, he said it’s not at all clear that greater agricultural development in countries that are now heavily dependent on food imports would bring down the price of commodities, one reason being that the world population is growing and there is a need for more food.

Jones reiterated that the purpose of the meetings and the report is not to push a particular agenda, but he did say he wanted to influence policy makers.

Early next year the Farm Foundation is going to advertise for policy papers that make more specific recommendations. There will be a competition and money award for the winner, Jones said.
More information will follow in these pages and on the Farm Foundation’s website, at www.farmfoundation.org