Today, modern agriculture is losing its battle to organic farming, which is considered by some to be the only politically correct way to produce food. In the next 50 years, organic farming would need another 25-30 million square miles of wildlife habitat to produce the food for the people of the world, Avery said. The land area needed would include North America, Europe and most of Asia. Without high-yield farming, those environmental zealots who want to add to the endangered species list may one day wake up without food to eat. High-yield farming presents the greatest opportunity in history.
Biotechnology can radically increase the speed of plant and animal breeding.
He told Farm Bureau members to abandon the argument that they are the world's greatest hunger fighters. American consumers don't really believe their supermarkets will ever run out of food. With the latest technology, wise conservation practices and the continued safe use of herbicides and insecticides, agriculture will continue to provide consumers with the healthiest, most abundant food available in the world. Several Asian countries with a total population of 2.5 billion people are poised to see income growth similar to that of Japan, Taiwan, and Korea, and that income will allow them to greatly improve their diet, said Dennis Avery, who was food policy analyst for the State Department during the Reagan administration and an Agriculture Department official before that. American farmers are in the best position to meet the increased demand, but agriculture policy in the United States and around the globe is likely to prevent that from happening, Avery said at the Kansas Agri Business Expo at Century II in down town Wichita.