Nov 16, 2011
NEW YORK - Crop protection and biotech traits solutions both in use today and under development for farmer use in the future paint a bright picture for ensuring an adequate food supply. Speaking yesterday at the "Feeding the World" conference sponsored by the Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF), four top executives of CropLife America (CLA) and its member companies expressed optimism about the future capability of crop technology to allow farmers to keep up with world food demand, driven by today's global population of more than 7 billion and expected to exceed 9 billion in a matter of decades.
"Of course there are challenges along the way to feeding the world’s growing population," noted Jay Vroom, president and CEO of CLA. "Interestingly, two of the major challenges can also be beneficial in this daunting task: government regulation of the hi-tech inputs, and global trade opportunities. A system of science-based, rule-of-law processes and regulations is a core component of the modern technology offer to farmers and society. Those regulatory processes need also to be timely, given the rapidly changing needs of farmers and the pace of technology discovery. On the other hand," Vroom observed, "government regulation has often been put through a politically correctness screen, subjected to factors beyond the hard sciences, and made overly duplicative. This can reduce the incentive for companies to innovate and allows for farmers to be subjected to unnecessary scrutiny from the media when they employ safe technologies."
Vroom also noted that governments can get out of phase with one another when it comes to the regulation of crop technologies, resulting in trade barriers. These disconnects are sometimes intentionally emplaced but oftentimes happen for other disparate reasons. "No matter the motivation, a lack of regulatory harmonization is a deterrent to innovation and technology adoption. And as farmers see a food demand now and know it will only grow in the future, the world cannot afford such artificial barriers. We need a new government commitment to agricultural regulatory harmonization, and a commitment to walk that talk."
Vroom also noted the increasing importance of fairer trade of agricultural commodities, allowing for farmer competitiveness and comparative advantage, which can lead to lower costs for consumers. “The U.S. Department of Agriculture has just announced record U.S. farm exports, exceeding $137 billion in the year ending September 30. There are enormous benefits to farmers and consumers to keep opening windows of opportunity for international food trade.”
Vroom and the CLA member leaders on the program -- Antonio Galindez, president and CEO of Dow AgroSciences; Rik Miller, president of DuPont Crop Protection; and Paul Rea, vice president of U.S. Crop Protection, BASF Crop Protection -- all provided concrete examples of how the industry's products and stewardship support and advance agricultural sustainability on every continent. Representatives of major agricultural aid donor foundations on the program focused much attention on the food production needs in Africa, and the CLA leaders provided examples of how the industry is actively engaged with products and stewardship support of Africa's farmers, mostly in collaborative partnerships with aid development agencies and foundations to help ensure that such technologies are sustainable and productive. The sessions were all moderated by New York Times journalist Andrew Revkin, who himself has previously written extensively about the challenge of feeding a growing world population.
Established in 1933, CropLife America (www.croplifeamerica.org) represents the developers, manufacturers, formulators and distributors of plant science solutions for agriculture and pest management in the United States. CropLife America’s member companies produce, sell and distribute virtually all the crop protection and biotechnology products used by American farmers.
