Hello for St. Louis, Mo. where the World Agricultural Forum is getting underway! We’ll be here all week covering the events and conversations that impact ag producers, not just in this country, but globally as well.
Tonight, delegates from countries around the world were welcomed to this year’s events with a reception and behind-the-scenes tour of the famous St. Louis Zoo sponosred by our friends at Novus International (I’ll have more about that tour later).
Before everything got kicked off, I caught up with Dr. Leonard J. Guarraia, Chairman and CEO of the World Ag Forum. He says the major issues facing agriculture today are water availability, credit availability, production levels and the ability to provide the foodstuffs and feedstocks to feed and fuel the planet. He says a meeting such as this one give people from divergent backgrounds a place to discuss their concerns and plan for what might be next down the pike.
“The focus of this meeting is not on what’s happened in the past but what do we see happeneing one two three years down the road. Because it’s extremely easy to say what’s happened; it’s extremely difficult, but far more important, to look at what’s going to happen in the future.”
Guarraia says out of all the issues facing agriculture water is the most serious. He says 65 percent of the world’s population live in water-short areas. He even points to China where’s there’s talk about moving the capital of Beijing because of a water shortage. He says this gathering of ag leaders and decision makers from around the world should generate enough ideas that some solutions will be found. He says they’ve got the major food producers, the major financiers (the bankers), the processors, the shippers… the whole food chain… so at least they’ve got all the right people in place.
Guarraia hopes the ag credit pinch around the world will start to lessen and more money will flow. But he says the uncertainty of too many areas, especially in some of the developing countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa, still makes some ag investments a risky proposition. But he remains optimistic a solution will be found.
“This is agriculture, and agriculture is always sunny. There are solutions, absolutely, and these people can come up with them because it’s in everyone’s vested interest to do so. We have to solve the problems because of the societal and social consequences of not solving the problems.”
You can hear all of my conversation with Guarraia here: Guarraia1.mp3