SubmiWhen we walk through the aisles at a grocery store or study the many choices on a restaurant menu, we seldom think about how the food got there.
Behind every package and every entre is an agricultural and food production system that represents 16 percent of our gross domestic product and employs more than 15 percent of the U.S. population. On National Ag Day, the first day of spring, we paid tribute to those who deliver us the safest, freshest, highest quality and most abundant food supply of any country in the world.
Our gratitude runs deep. Americans spend just one thin dime from each dollar of our disposable income for food. That amount is the lowest of any country anywhere in the world, and for years it consistently has dropped.
Our affordable food supply is possible because our food and agricultural industry embraces technology, from the age of mechanization, to the age of crop production and protection to the current age of biotechnology. Despite the unpredictability of weather, the ravages caused by pests and limited fertile cropland, agriculture continues to find ways to produce better, safer and more abundant crops that are gentle to the environment.
The people in agriculture view their industry as facing a relentless challenge. Some 900 million people around the world either lack the quality or quantity of food necessary to sustain life. Our global population continues to grow, particularly in areas where there is little productive land. Meanwhile, the amount of prime cropland in America is diminishing due to urban sprawl.
The notion of producing more and better food using fewer resources at ever-lower costs seems impossible, however. just as agriculture and food researchers have done for the past century-and-a-half, we will need to look toward science for answers, particularly from plant biotechnology.
Nobel prizewinner Norman Borlaug, an expert in crop production, believes yield gains in China, North America and western Europe can expand another 50 percent during the next 35 years - mostly through biotechnology. Researchers are finding new and better ways to ward off pests that destroy crops, enhance the consistency and quality of our harvest and achieve the full genetic potential of crops.
Borlaug also believes crop yields could be increased from 50 percent to 100 percent in much of the Indian sub-continent, Latin America, the former USSR and eastern Europe, and by 100 to 200 percent in much of sub-Saharan Africa. Presuming these regions can become stable politically and economically, Borlaug believes these crop production goals are achievable with a commitment to putting science and biotechnology to work at the farm level.
Researchers are already working on tomatoes that can tolerate salt-filled soils, which currently curtail crop growth, and perhaps someday this advancement could lead to crops grown with seawater. The rice genome has been mapped, giving researchers the basis to build new varieties that deliver greater nutritional value, generate more food and offer built-in protection from pests, with less pressure on the environment. As discovery leads to discovery, we potentially could see developments including healthier cooking oils, foods without allergy risks and fruits and vegetables that stay fresher longer.
America enjoys most of these breakthroughs first because we typically are the first to embrace new agricultural technologies. We have a strong research and development infrastructure, a world-leading regulatory process and a deep commitment to bringing improvements in food quality, safety, choice and abundance.
We may see this food and agribusiness success story solely as stocked shelves or an excellent menu. Behind them, however, is a complex industry that reflects one in six dollars of our economic activity. Even President Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, "Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles away from the cornfield."
Keep Rest Area Open
Editor, Times-Union: This is in response to Mr. Conley's article under the guest column on Tuesday, the 5th. I am in complete agreement with him in his opinion of closing down the rest area on route 30. My husband and I are also truck drivers and though we never have a need for this particular rest area, as we live in Pierceton, there are many times we DO need a rest area in other states. We drive long haul and it is imperative that drivers have a place to stop and rest when they get tired. Trust me, when fatigue hits you, it can come upon you in a matter of minutes and another 30 minutes or an hour to get to a safe place to pull over can become a real danger to all concerned. All you hear from the complaining public is how "dangerous all these truck drivers are." Well, stop and think for a moment ... when safe places to rest are so few and far between, it is our wonderful states with so few places to offer that are partly to blame! Just two weeks ago, my husband and I were both tired at the same time and needed to take a break. We pulled into the rest area at the 50- mile post in Illinois to take a nap at about 2 a.m. and there must have been 75 trucks in that area with both the entrance and exit ramps totally full. Only unless we wanted to park on the traveled part of the exit shoulder, there were literally NO empty spots to park. So, what is a person to do? Drive on to the next one, of course. And I have heard of numerous drivers out there parking on ramps only to get woke up to be issued a parking ticket because it is against the law. Unless you people travel a lot of miles at night across country and just take a LOOK at what is offered can you know the enormity of this problem. A very high percentage of truckers literally LIVE in their trucks for weeks at a time. Not only do they drive half the day, they eat, sleep and even cook in them. A man's truck is his home while on the road and the roads are a public place in which we all travel. Well, your HOME is also on a public street or highway. Does that make it legal for these so-called "undesirables" to come knocking on your front door in the middle of the night to ask if you want "company" for the night? Mr. Conley's idea of making it a "truck only" parking lot is a wonderful idea ... IF we could just get the authorities to enforce it! And when it is violated by these "undesirables," plaster their names, phone numbers and addresses across the front page of the newspapers so the public can harass them in the middle of the night and see how they like it! Why don't the creeps exchange numbers between themselves and leave the people that need sleep alone! Please, help us in fighting the closing of the rest area. It is as much for your OWN safety as the DRIVERS that NEED it!
