With Iowa’s harvest season in full swing, it’s fitting that 800 scientists, policymakers, anti-hunger advocates, farmers and business leaders from 65 countries around the world gathered in Des Moines in October for The World Food Prize.
Launched by Iowa’s native son Norman E. Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution, the World Food Prize Foundation honors those who fight hunger and raises much-needed public awareness about malnutrition in the world. Although he was absent from this year’s conference because of his passing in September, at age 95, Dr. Borlaug’s anti-hunger crusade to cure world hunger continues to bloom. His legacy will be carried on by legions of people called to the cause, including farmers who are growing food in fields around the world; agronomists who are working to develop disease- and drought-resistant, high-yield grains to feed a growing a world population; and, the politicians, investors and philanthropists who are channeling public and private resources to finance rural development and advance modern farming techniques in underdeveloped, under-fed nations.
Dr. Borlaug’s tireless work ethic led him to farm fields in Mexico and India where he achieved a remarkable humanitarian accomplishment. His pioneering breakthroughs in plant genetics are credited for saving a billion people from starvation.
As farmers blanket Iowa’s landscape to harvest the 2009 crop, the USDA estimates Iowa will yield a record 2.5 billion bushels of corn and 495 million bushels of soybeans. Once again, Iowa will lead the nation in corn and soybean production. Consider 20 years ago, Iowa farmers harvested just under 60 percent of what the expected total production will be this fall. Today, each U.S. farmer produces food and fiber for 155 people in the United State and abroad, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. Farmers are building on the agrarian heritage started long ago that has made Iowa into ground zero for high-yield food production.
Conscientious stewardship of limited natural resources is a responsibility not taken lightly by those whose livelihoods depend upon it year after year. Farmers can’t afford to take environmental shortcuts that will lead to detrimental economic and ecological consequences in the long-term. Slim profit margins, uncertainty in the marketplace and natural disasters already create roadblocks to prosperity. And for so many farm families, farming not only provides a livelihood, it’s a way of life.
Serving as an outspoken advocate for farmers and rural America, I work alongside lawmakers who hardly have dirt in their congressional district, let alone have farm dirt underneath their own fingernails. The same goes for the unelected policymakers in the federal bureaucracy. So when Congress debates food safety legislation, the EPA writes rules to implement clean water laws or the White House negotiates international trade agreements, I want to make sure the concerns of the nation’s food producers are heard loud and clear.
Last month on the floor of the U.S. Senate, I took the opportunity to set the record straight about American agriculture. A news magazine recently published a report it called “The Real Cost of Cheap Food.” The article demonized conventional agriculture, denigrating the honest work of Midwestern farmers who conscientiously grow the grains and raise the livestock that helps feed a growing population still plagued by hunger. The world population is 6.7 billion people, and it’s estimated to grow to over 9 billion by 2050.
Although many societies pay a much greater share of their income to put food on the table, Americans pay a declining share of their disposable personal income on groceries. In the 1920s, U.S. households spent nearly 24 percent of their income to feed their families. In 2008, Americans spent 9.6 percent. With each passing decade, consumers have come to rely on an affordable food supply and American agriculture has stepped up to the challenge. In times of economic uncertainty and joblessness, American agriculture has kept food affordable. And consider that farmers receive only 19 cents of every food dollar spent along the food chain.
When food prices at the grocery store rise, consumers in the U.S. are quick to notice. Recall back to early 2008, rising commodity prices actually led to food riots in more than 30 countries and a ban of rice exports by India, China, Vietnam and Egypt. Even U.S. customers were reported hoarding food and some stores were rationing sales of rice.
The pangs of hunger among the disadvantaged and developing nations ought to serve as a crystal-clear lesson for those who make and report public policy: food security also is irrevocably tied to international peace and national security.
It’s said that society is only three meals away from revolution. Just think if you couldn’t feed your own children for a full day. You’d do just about anything to feed them. Dr. Borlaug appreciated the big picture of food security. This Iowa farm boy from Cresco didn’t seek fame or fortune; he sought to conquer famine. Perhaps the 23rd annual World Food Prize will enlighten those who doubt production agriculture has a place in the 21st century. As Dr. Borlaug wrote just six weeks before his passing: “Given the right tools, farmers have shown an uncanny ability to feed themselves and others, to ignite the economic engine that will reverse the cycle of chronic poverty.”
As Iowa farmers harvest another bumper crop of agricultural abundance, let us give thanks for their sweat equity and the evolution of production agriculture that helps conquer the pangs of hunger that still afflict one of every seven persons on Earth.