U.S. Agriculture is Part of the Food Security Solution

By now, we have all heard about this cover article published by Time magazine which criticizes modern agriculture (if you haven’t, I encourage you to read it).  Last weekend, I read the latest newsletter by the American Agri-Women (@Women4Ag on Twitter) responding to Bryan Walsh’s editorial in Time.  In the article, I particularly liked the response from Patrick Boyle, President and CEO of the American Meat Institute who stated “[i]n a world of 7 billion people and expanding, where malnutrition, hunger or outright famine are commonplace, it’s dumbfounding that Time magazine would take one of the great American success stores– the efficient agricultural production of an abundant variety of healthy, safe and affordable foods for consumers in the U.S. and throughout the world–and turn it into an unrecognizable story of exploitation, manipulation and greed.”

This quote resonated with me because food security is very near and dear to my heart.  During law school I read the book The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs and it became apparent to me how connected the world is.  World hunger is a solvable problem — there is enough food to feed the world, there is just a problem with the distribution of that food.  It saddens me that the media has painted U.S. agriculture as part of the problem instead of the solution to problems like world hunger.

Americans take for granted their ability to buy cheap, safe, high quality food.  Many countries around the world do not have this luxury.  If you don’t believe me then I encourage you to apply for a passport and hop on a plane to a developing country.

This past week I watched this video on YouTube, which demonstrated just how fast technology is moving around the globe.  How our kids are being trained to do jobs that don’t exist.  It’s amazing how the American Farmer is criticized for using advances in technology to be more efficient and grow safer food in larger quantities to feed the world.  In a world where cell phone technologies are outdated in a year, let’s praise U.S. farmers and ranchers for also becoming more efficient to help feed the world’s population.

Are there ways that U.S. agriculture can approve?  Absolutely.  But we cannot afford to go backwards.  We have a world to feed.