John Alliston welcomed the agricultural world Monday to the Bone Student Center on the campus of Illinois State University for the 17th annual International Farm Management Congress.

Alliston, the President of the IFMA, stressed the importance of communication during this week-long seminar that includes a multitude of presentations dealing with world agriculture.

“By the end of this week, we want everyone in this room to know everyone else in the room,” said Alliston, who was preceded by IFMA17 host Fred Hepler, Illinois Ag director Tom Jennings and Illinois State President Dr. Al Bowman.

“One of the advantages of having a congress like this is that you get to share ideas with people from so many different countries,” Alliston said.

Dr. Robert Thompson, the Gardner Endowed Chair in Agricultural Policy, from the University of Illinois presented a world perspective of agriculture. Thompson’s overview of world agriculture ranged from the limited window of time farmers have to plant and harvest crops to the need for more investment in technology.
He expressed concern over the current economic climate and what effects that could have on agriculture in the long term.

“The rate of inflation as well as interest rates will have a profound impact on the well being of farming,” Thompson said. “I think there is a significant risk, at least in this country, of an outbreak of inflation in the future. The massive amounts of liquidity that are being pumped into the economy with the stimulus package, there’s a high risk for inflation, and this could come back to affect agriculture significantly.”

The world is also in need of more food production according to Thompson, who believes the global population will double by 2050. That places greater importance on finding the land necessary to grow crops, and an even greater importance on advancing farming technologies.

“Food demand is likely to double in the first half of this century,” Thompson said. “Half of that comes from about a 50 percent increase in population, the other half from successful economic growth.”

Thompson said that we are running out of space, and that only 12 percent of the land in the world is farmable unless forests are cut down to make room for crops. This is a last resort option of course. The destruction of forests would lead to displacement of animals and a virtual devastation of habitats.

Bloomington, Ill. is only the second U.S. city to host this event in the Congress’ 38 year history. IFMA 17 runs from July 19 to July 24.

For a review of the complete itinerary, visit: http://www.ifma17.org/

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