Just a month to get in entries for a competition that’s looking for innovative and promising public policy options to address challenges facing agriculture and the food system.
The Farm Foundation’s competition with its June 1st submission deadline is based on the group’s report released last December… The 30-Year Challenge: Agriculture’s Strategic Role in Feeding and Fueling a Growing World. The report breaks down the challenges into six major categories: 1. Global financial markets and recession; 2. Global food security; 3. Global energy security; 4. Climate change; 5. Competition for natural resources; and 6. Global economic development. Cash prizes totaling $20,000 will be handed out:
“Agriculture globally faces the challenge of how to provide food to a world that is expected to have 9 billion people by 2040,” says Farm Foundation President Neil Conklin. “This challenge exists at the same time that we are already seeing pressures on global resources, as well as increased demand for agriculture to provide not only food, but feed, fiber and fuel.
“It is not clear that today’s public policies-designed to deal with issues of the last century-provide appropriate tools and incentives to address the challenges of the next 30 years,” Conklin continues. “Farm Foundation is offering this competition as a catalyst for innovative ideas and approaches.”
The 30-Year Challenge project is directed and led by Farm Foundation. Contributing financial assistance to the project are: the Alliance for Abundant Food and Energy, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Corn Growers Association, the National Pork Producers Council, and the United Egg Producers.
More information is available through the competition’s Web site.
Our friends at Farm Foundation are sponsoring another discussion on an important issue facing farming in America: animal welfare as it relates to production agriculture.
The next Farm Foundation event is less than a week away and will feature U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack as the keynote speaker.
Make plans to attend the next Farm Foundation Forum Tuesday May 5th from 9 to 11 am at the National Press Club, 529 14th Street NW, Washington D.C. when the group takes a look at animal welfare as it relates to production agriculture:
A workshop examining the relationship between public- and private-sector research and agricultural productivity growth, both in the United States and worldwide, takes place later this month at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.
Commercializing Gasification/Fermentation Technology was the topic of comments made by Mark Dietzen, 
I spoke with Paul Willems, BP Energy Biosciences Institute, one of our speakers at the Farm Foundation Transition To A Bio Economy Conference. I had met him previously at an earlier conference in the series.
Biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel weren’t the only energy alternatives on the program at the Farm Foundation Transition To A Bio Economy Conference. We also had a presentation on wind energy from Mark Willers, Minwind Energy.
The legislative guru for the 
I think Joel Velasco, Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association, had the quote of the day here at the Farm Foundation Transition To A Bio Economy Conference.
Seth Meyer is with the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI). He’s also a speaker here at the Farm Foundation’s Transition To A Bio Economy Conference.
We know that OPEC has had a monopoly control over the price of oil on the world market and we hope that the increase of more environmentally friendly biofuels will force that to change. However, David Zilberman, University of California, Berkeley, has created a model to measure how much impact we’re having.
Speaking on behalf of the European Commission To The United States here at the Transition To A Bio Economy Conference was Laurent Javaudin. Laurent sent me a message about coming to the conference via 
Mary Thompson, Farm Foundation, took my photo yesterday as I was doing some concluding work for the day here at their Transition To A Bio Economy Conference: Global Trade & Policy Issues.
Biofuels production in Canada will impact meat trading patterns according to research by Al Mussell, George Morris Centre, University of Guelph. He says that the increase in biofuels production will turn the country into an importer of grains instead of an exporter. Al was one of the speakers at the Transition To A Bio Economy Conference.
A very interesting presentation at our Farm Foundation Global Trade and Policy Issues conference had to do with the impact on poverty. Tom Hertel, Purdue University, was our presenter.
Former Texas Congressman Charles Stenholm was the moderator for our second session here at the Farm Foundation Global Trade & Policy Issues conference. I don’t think you’ll find anyone more knowledgeable about the policy side of this discussion.
Providing us with a “Technical Global Biofuels Analysis” here at the Farm Foundation Global Trade & Policy Issues conference was Thomas Alfstad, Brookhaven National Laboratory. 
Michael Schaal is with the Energy Information Administration which is part of the U. S. Dept. of Energy. He spoke early on the program at the Farm Foundation conference about the global outlook for energy.