Fight For Agriculture All Year, Not Just During Ag Week

Every year we celebrate National Ag Week to recognize the huge contribution agriculture makes in our lives, to understand how farmers produce food and fiber, to remind ourselves that without a strong agricultural base the economy and the security of our nation founders, and to appreciate the safe, abundant food products we enjoy in the U.S.

Even though each American farmer feeds approximately 144 people, an increase from 25 people each farmer could feed 40 years ago, many people fail to understand basic agriculture. As America becomes increasing urbanized, consumers have lost their relationship with the land and seem to think that food regenerates itself overnight on grocery store shelves. Our urban neighbors often fail to realize that without agriculture we all perish.

In 2006, half the world population lived in urban centers, and this percentage will continue to increase with each passing decade. World population will increase another 30% by 2050, and these extra people will need more food, more water, more energy, and more of the earth’s resources. These extra people will also impact the planet through increased CO2 emissions, deforestation, and the plunder of the land. More and more agricultural land will be lost to much less important uses, such as oil exploration and houses, but farmers will be expected to increase production using fewer resources to feed all these extra mouths. Because of this, an understanding of agriculture will become even more vital in the coming years, and if we do not educate these city folks about all aspects of agricultural production, we all lose.

Agriculture faces many challenges, not only in the face of losing land to greedy developers bent on erecting houses and buildings where corn ought to grow, but through a multitude of other issues such as input costs, politicians who have no understanding of agriculture yet feel perfectly qualified in making detrimental decisions about agriculture, and the coming soil and water issues that we will face in the near future.

We in the MonDak have witnessed how quickly prime farm land can turn into concrete slabs housing businesses, scoria covered ground for parking vehicles or developing oil leases, or for the construction of never-ending rail sidings. We all know this lost farmland will never again return to growing wheat and barley to feed our grandchildren.

We need to reexamine agriculture in our area and place its preservation as our highest priority. We need to take the long view, the view that the coming generations will need to eat, the view that what good will gasoline powered vehicles do for our great grandchildren when they won’t be able to find affordable food on the grocery shelves. We need to do anything and everything in our power to preserve and protect our agricultural land and the farmers who work that land and produce the food required for us to survive. Agriculture needs to take first place.

Already many scientists question whether or not farmers will be able to feed the world in 2050. Certainly we will not be able to do so when farm land continues to disappear, water becomes more scarce and groups begin fighting over its distribution, and farming input costs continue to skyrocket beyond affordability. We in the boomer generation really won’t care, as we won’t be here to see the debacle. Our grandchildren and great grandchildren, however, will suffer the consequences of our shortsightedness.

We must keep the ideals and rationale for Ag Week in mind all year long, and do whatever we can to ensure that farmers, ranchers, and the land in their trust will remain safe, and that farmers have the ability to operate profitably and provide the necessity of life: food for us to eat.