How do you feed, clothe and fuel a world population that is expected to climb to 9 billion people by 2040? That is the challenge the folks at the Farm Foundation set out about a year ago to address six major drivers impacting agriculture’s ability to provide food, feed, fiber and fuel to a growing world. Those six areas are: global financial markets and recession; global food security; global energy security; climate change; competition for natural resources and global economic development.
On Tuesday, October 27th the ag-based think tank will host a conference focusing on those six challenging areas at the National Press Club, in Washington, D.C.:
Featured speakers will be Dr. Rajiv Shah, USDA Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics, former U.S. Trade Representative Clayton Yeutter and Erik Peterson, Director of the Global Strategy Institute at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The program will also feature a panel of agribusiness, NGO and academic leaders discussing how to build the next generation of public policies. Dr. Barry Flinchbaugh of Kansas State University will moderate that discussion.
“Given the right tools and incentives, we are confident that the world’s agricultural producers and agribusinesses will meet the 30-year challenge,” says Farm Foundation President Neil Conklin. “But those incentives and tools are heavily influenced by food and agricultural policies that have been shaped by decades of abundance and declining real food prices.
“Today, consumers, environmental concerns and climate change–as well as a major global financial recession–are reshaping the public policy landscape. It is not clear that today’s policies, most of which were designed to deal with the challenges of the last century, will provide the tools and incentives needed to address the 30-year challenge,” Conklin continues.
The conference will feature the winners in Farm Foundation”s 30-Year Challenge Policy Competition, which sought innovative and promising public policy options to address the challenges outlined in the 30-Year Challenge report.
You can register for the free conference by Friday, October 23 here.