Ag Policy Blog

Trying to Feed the World? So What Does That Mean to Me?

Chris Clayton
By  Chris Clayton , DTN Ag Policy Editor
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Listen up farmers. The average American soccer mom does not care that you are trying to feed the world.

They want to know what you are doing for them.

That's the breakdown from the Center for Food Integrity's latest report on consumer views regarding food and farmers.

“The global population is forecast to reach nine billion by 2050. Feeding the nine billion will require technology and innovation that will help farmers raise more animals for food and grow more crops on the land already in production,” said Charlie Arnot, CEO of the Center for Food Integrity. “But the ‘feeding the world’ message won’t generate public support for today’s agriculture technology.”

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Technically, the United Nations projects the global population will reach 9.6 billion people by 2050 and the big question is how many more people will go hungry as a result -- beyond the current 805 million or so people that struggle to find enough to eat.

But for American consumers -- because we're kind of self-centered -- the message that "The U.S. has a responsibility to provide food for the rest of the world," only resonated with about 25% of us, according to Arnot's report, called “Cracking the Code on Food Issues: Insights from Moms, Millennials and Foodies."

“It’s time to change the conversation,” Arnot said in a news release.

Instead of preaching that U.S. farmers have to feed the world, the message should focus on telling American consumers that farmers are producing healthy and affordable food for them.

“U.S. consumers are much more interested in access to healthy, affordable food than in feeding the world,” Arnot said. “Farmers are more likely to build support for today’s farming by talking about how what they do on the farm helps keep healthy food affordable.”

That means changing the message on why technology such as biotech crops or confined livestock systems help produce that healthy, affordable food.

“Building trusting relationships with consumers is about making what you’re doing relevant to them and helping them understand that you share their values when it comes to important issues like animal care, the environment and providing healthy, affordable food ” Arnot said. “Our peer-reviewed and published trust model tells us that communicating with shared values is three-to-five times more important to building consumer trust than simply providing information.”

A summary of the CFI research can be downloaded at www.foodintegrity.org

Follow me on Twitter @ChrisClaytonDTN.

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Comments

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Jay Mcginnis
5/4/2015 | 5:57 AM CDT
Raymond, it is not that there isn't enough food, the problem is distribution and politics. As Bonnie knows, being in a capitalist world the people who can afford food get more then enough and those that happen to land on this earth in less "blessed" areas simply starve. What this article fails to address is the dependance modern agriculture has on limited inputs such as fossil fuels and phosphorus, it is as strong as its weakest link. History will point to this dependance and how we wasted our resources.
Bonnie Dukowitz
4/24/2015 | 7:13 AM CDT
Kind of spoiled. Aren't we. Could this be called, Self Centered?
Raymond Simpkins
4/24/2015 | 5:57 AM CDT
Why not feed the world with all the surplus grain we supposedly have?