Today is World Food Day in case you didn’t know it. This is a FAO-organized event held every year. I applaud their desire to bring attention to the plight of the hungry around the world.
However, they’ve been taken over by a bunch of wackos who are employing extreme scare tactics to advance an agenda that is seriously out of kilter with reality. So, I mainly just ignore the FAO these days. That’s too bad but I think we’re seeing a lot of these tactics and types of people everywhere these days. You can probably figure out who they are as well as I can.
So, on World Food Day, right after Blog Action Day, which had a theme of poverty, let’s do what we can to help those less fortunate than us. But let’s do it with common sense and make decisions based on science and not sensational emotionalism.
Cindy is attending the World Food Prize Norman Borlaug Symposium where I’m sure she’s interacting with people who do bring a much more credible voice to the challenges and solutions to the issue of world hunger.
Among the presenters was Brazil’s former minister of agriculture Roberto Rodrigues, co-chair of the 
Another speaker on the same panel was Pioneer Hi-Bred International president Paul Schickler who talked about all the improvements in seed technology and how it has increased production. He took the first question to the panel, which was “How optimistic are you that the world can reduce hunger by half by 2015?”
The amount of water that goes into growing the corn that goes into ethanol has been a big topic of conversation between those for and against production of the green fuel. That’s why it is a topic of conversation at the Farm Foundation’s Transition to a Bioeconomy: Environmental and Rural Impacts Conference in St. Louis this week. This gathering of government officials, academics and industry leaders is designed to take on the tough questions facing Rural America as it moves to a bioeconomy.
One of the people in the ethanol/water discussion is Noel Gollehon, a senior economist with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. He says the amount of irrigated corn is particularly concerning.
Today has been “Blog Action Day” and the theme this year is poverty. Coincidentally, that is the basic theme here in Des Moines at the 
This year’s winners are former U.S. Senators George McGovern and Bob Dole, who are responsible for legislation creating an international school-feeding program which has provided meals to feed more than 22 million children in 41 countries. They are pictured here during a dialogue held at the event with 2003 World Food Prize winner Catherine Bertini, former executive director of the World Food Program. 
Meet John Davis in case you haven’t. I meant to let you know earlier that he’s covering the Farm Foundation’s Transition to a Bio Economy: Environmental and Rural Impacts Conference in St. Louis this week while Cindy is in Des Moines at the World Food Prize Symposium and I’m at Sunbelt Ag Expo.
I got an overview of Sunbelt Ag Expo today. By overview I mean from the control tower for this airport which was formerly a military airfield. I climbed up and took a few photos early today.
Even though the word “crisis” is being used liberally here at the 
Conway stressed the need to address why we want to produce biofuels and the urgency to move quickly into second and even third generation biofuels – such as cellulosic ethanol from switchgrass and biodiesel from algae. “Maybe we should have a new World Food Prize on this,” Conway said. “In which we transform the world from one dependent on fossil fuels for energy and production of chemicals, into one that depends on plants as a basic source of our economy.”
One of the key speakers during this session was USDA’s Under Secretary for Rural Development Thomas Dorr, who talked about how we need to move forward and be aggressive… even in light of the recent stock market turbulence.
When it comes to farm show food booths, one that’s getting a lot of business at Sunbelt Ag Expo is Roasted Corn.
This is Justin Cremer, director of communications for the World Food Prize, at the door of the press room. Not too many media types here yet – more will be on hand for the bigger events, like the Laureate’s Forum tonight and the actual presentation of the World Food Prize on Thursday. 
One person who is here is Susan Carter – the newest member of USDA’s broadcast team. She took over the spot vacated by the legendary Brenda Curtis when she retired early this year. Susan has been on the job since May and while she is smiling in this photo, she has been experiencing some of the usual on the road headaches – flight delays and cancellations, internet problems and computer issues. Bless her heart – and she is still smiling.