Feeding a hungry world

The Bioeconomy Conference at Iowa State University this week is focusing on biofuels, but it raises a number of interesting challenges important to human survival.

Among them is the reality that the world is running out of places capable of growing food and energy crops. A second is that even by conservative estimates, total food production must grow by 50 percent or so by 2030 to feed a global population already experiencing food shortages.

There seems to be a lot of interest in the role of crop production as an answer to these challenges: less so in the role of protein production. Yet there are estimates that a third of the world population’s diets already are protein deficient. So while many of us in the pork production industry applaud the efforts to increase the production of what traditionally have been food crops, we have some difficulty understanding why there seems to be so much energy expended on limiting the growth of those who produce protein.

Pork producers, through their ingenuity, have made huge productivity advances in recent decades. Those gains have helped to feed hungry people around the world and to keep food prices low for American consumers. And despite the protests of those who don’t like the idea of production efficiency except when it comes to their pocketbooks, producers have made these gains while remaining true to their commitments to good animal husbandry practices and to environmental stewardship.

Serious questions about the long-term effects of increasing food productivity are appropriate. And as those questions get answered satisfactorily, we simply hope that pork producers get a fair chance to continue feeding a growing and hungry world.

- Mike Wegner