The Coming Food Crunch

While agricultural land continues to dwindle and water issues become increasingly critical, the population continues to explode at unprecedented rates. How to feed all these people on less and less land will become a huge challenge over the course of the next several decades. To address this issue, Bovine Connection organizers have invited Dr. Jon Seeger, Pfizer Animal Health technical services veterinarian, to discuss this looming problem. Seeger will talk at 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 1 in the meeting room at the Richland County Extension facility, 1499 North Central Ave., Sidney.

“I will discuss technology in beef production and impress on the audience the significance of what technology has done to produce beef and what is coming in the future,” Seeger remarks. “We will need to double our food production in short order and we need to discuss how to do this.”

Seeger will cover the coming needs and challenges in food production and what we can do now to prepare for this mammoth undertaking. “I’ll review where we’ve been and where the population and its needs will go, and the challenges involved,” he comments. “I will talk about how we can do this. This presentation will not be a scientific lecture but rather an informational session to review and project. There are some real challenges ahead and we need to prepare.”

Seeger tosses out a staggering statistic to illustrate his point. “We have six billion people on earth now with a projected seven billion by 2050,” he says. “The bottom line is that we will have to produce as much food in the next 40 years as mankind has ever produced since the beginning of time. Energy is important, but food is critical, and we will have to produce that food with less available water and less input costs.”

Seeger looks forward to meeting MonDak cattlemen at the Bovine Connection. “This should be fun,” he says. “I hope to stimulate thinking with my presentation.”

Seeger grew up on a North Dakota farm and ranch, so he understands food production issues. He worked as a veterinarian for 21 years, served as the assistant state veterinarian for North Dakota, then joined the Pfizer team where he has spent the past 18 years as a technical services veterinarian. “I know the cattle industry from several sides: as a producer, as a veterinarian, and from the industry and regulator sides,” he concludes.