Editors' Notebook

Virginia Harris, associate editor at The Progressive Farmer Magazine, spent several days at this year's national FFA convention, and filed this on her thoughts about how the conversations around food, farming, and technology are changing, and the role ag youth will need to play in that conversation.

The 87th FFA Convention wraps up Saturday afternoon, with 62,000 members, advisers and assorted media and guests heading their separate ways. This year's convention felt similar to years past in its overwhelming swarm of blue-jacketed young people, but several of the general session speakers had a certain urgency to their remarks.

Monsanto, Tyson Foods and Elanco each sent executives to address the next generation of agriculture producers and food scientists. Their remarks felt downright sermon-like, to be honest, exhorting FFA members to "tell their story" and set the record straight about how food is produced and what is necessary to feed the growing world population.

Brett Begeman, president and chief operating officer of Monsanto; Donnie Smith, president and chief executive officer of Tyson; and Jeff Simmons, president of Elanco all spread the same gospel this week. They must have been working from the same lectionary, prophesying about feeding 9 billion people by 2050 on today's footprint of land and the need for American farmers and agriculture stakeholders to proclaim the good news, increasing consumer confidence and keeping PETA at bay.

Wait, are some of those things not like the other? Well, we will have to feed 9 billion people by 2050, and with continued arable land loss in the US the agriculture land footprint certainly won't be growing between now and then. So how does that relate to consumer confidence?

Well, Smith, CEO of one of the most vilified companies in the US today, Tyson, put it frankly. He can't tell the story of ag and improve Tyson's or ag's image to the millions of Americans removed from the farm.

Elanco's Simmons warned if producers and scientists don't do the innovating for the future of food, other producers and scientists (apparently the wrong kind) will do the innovating. He used quite the illustrative example, asking several FFA members to play food roulette on the stage. Students uncovered such options as crickets, a recently UN-approved source of protein; tempeh, a cake-like soy product originating from Indonesia that provides high levels of protein and fiber; rice and beans; an American cheeseburger and synthetic beef, developed with animal stem cells.

Several of those options don't sound appetizing at all. They wouldn't to Americans. I think that's Simmons' intent, though. He insinuated crickets, tempeh and synthetic beef would become worldwide options if American producers can't increase their production levels over the next 35 years. However, he left out the fact that at least two of those options, crickets and tempeh, are rooted in specific parts of the world and were chosen for their nutritious value by the people who eat them.

With this in mind, Simmons and Smith both announced marketing campaigns for their respective companies. Smith held an altar call, asking students to bring out their cell phones (to their FFA advisors' chagrin) and start tweeting their ag stories, using #MyAgStory, to "take back the conversation" about agriculture.

Simmons touted Elanco's "Enough" campaign, a marketing effort to alleviate world hunger. He exhorted members to "do something" about world hunger. He brought on stage a Tillamook, Ore. FFA member who started a greenhouse micro-greens project, growing arugula and broccoli, to feed 60 families at a local food bank year-round. That project has partnered with a school in Kenya, to help the school start a micro-greens project there.

Begemann, Smith and Simmons all asked students to be innovators in an ag-related career, and they're right. Feeding 9 billion people isn't just a prophesy, we will have to accomplish that. However, continuing a divided competition about who and how that will be done doesn't seem like an effective way to do that. These executive's asked FFA members to "take back the conversation," not to engage in conversation.

In true sermon fashion, I'll leave you with some questions. Does it need to be one side against the other? Or should we be in conversation with our critics in order to create a better world together? I guess it's the next generation who will answer those questions, but let's hope they are receiving the right advice.

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