GLOBAL Challenges for global food production

I have been involved in agriculture in one form or another for my entire life.  I grew up on a farm where we milked our own cow, raised our own eggs, beef and chicken, and grew a variety of crops.  From there I moved into technology but have always worked directly or indirectly in the agriculture industry.

Living in a world of Facebook and other social media, I am inundated with opinions on the dangers of GMO, how organic food is so much better, and the evils of corporatization of food and agriculture.  I certainly have an opinion on that, but in this essay I am trying to bring light on a bigger issue that the agri-business community is facing that the general population is aware of.

Whatever your take is on GMO or Monsanto or any of the other issues facing food and crop production the single most important issue is, in my humble opinion, that the population on this planet will increase by a third to almost 2.3 billion people by 2050.  This increase in population will also require a 70% increase in food production to feed it. 

As someone who works in Agriculture and crop production I'm truly concerned on how we will do this.  Farm land is limited, water is limited (as California is showing), and climate change is causing all kinds of unknown effects on our planet.  GMOs, precision farming technology, agrochemicals, and water management are all tools that help modern farmers increase their yields and efficiencies to levels never imagined.

a story recently, that I think exemplifies how significant this change has been.  He is semiretired but works for a local farmer during harvest.  He operates the grain harvester for his neighbor.  This machine isn’t the biggest or the newest but it is a fairly modern harvester.  With this machine, he can harvest more grain in one day then he did in an entire season only a decade earlier. 

Let that sink in a second.  What one person used to complete in about a month is now being done in a day.  If it was the latest and greatest machine, that number would be even higher.  I believe that the productivity gains in agriculture that has happened in the past century and the past decade are one of the most significant innovations in modern history.  I see multiple examples of this every day in the Agriculture business.  Farmers are using technologies to increase productivity to levels never thought possible. 

But with so many voices rallying against many of these technologies that are providing so much growth in food production, I’m not sure how we will try to produce 70% more without these technologies and science that so many people rally against.  On top of the fact that we need to feed an additional 2.3 billion people, these people have to live somewhere too. 

Our planet is facing so many stresses and challenges, but I think a dialog free of hyperbole, hype, fear mongering, and special interests is required.  There is a huge disconnect, particularly in the western world, between the people that grow the food and the people that consume it.  But dogma, quasi science and corporate interests cloud the issue.

How do we feed an additional 2 billion people?