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We Need to Change Our Agricultural Paradigm
This startling image—showing a farmer standing on vast quantities of spoiled wheat—is an indictment of agribusiness's call that we simply grow more food to avert the coming food crisis. We already have enough food to feed a growing population if we only were better stewards of it after harvest. Food loss also has an environmental price: it wastes the water, energy, pesticides, fertilizers, and human labor necessary to produce it. Technologies already exist that could have averted the losses shown in this picture. Yet more are needed. Educated scientists who are familiar with the unique challenges faced by their own countries need to be put to work.
Agribusiness drives much of the agenda of agriculture. It heavily influences the agenda of university departments, research institutions, and humanitarian organizations. The industry's emphasis on the business of producing food—the sale of seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides—has left us with a paucity of technologies and few educated professionals dedicated to the preservation of food. We need to have a shift in this agricultural paradigm.
Losses in our food supply between harvest and consumption are much higher in the developing world. In our efforts to feed more people, the WORLD FOOD PRESERVATION CENTER® LLC will provide a far greater return per dollar than investment in production technologies. Scientists educated at a "Sister" University of the WORLD FOOD PRESERVATION CENTER® LLC will return to their countries and establish independent research, education, and extension programs that meet the specific needs of their communities. These programs will continue generationally. Current efforts in the developing world to combat postharvest food loss are often unsustainable; they typically depend on the continual input of experts from the developed world.
Agribusiness drives much of the agenda of agriculture. It heavily influences the agenda of university departments, research institutions, and humanitarian organizations. The industry's emphasis on the business of producing food—the sale of seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides—has left us with a paucity of technologies and few educated professionals dedicated to the preservation of food. We need to have a shift in this agricultural paradigm.
Losses in our food supply between harvest and consumption are much higher in the developing world. In our efforts to feed more people, the WORLD FOOD PRESERVATION CENTER® LLC will provide a far greater return per dollar than investment in production technologies. Scientists educated at a "Sister" University of the WORLD FOOD PRESERVATION CENTER® LLC will return to their countries and establish independent research, education, and extension programs that meet the specific needs of their communities. These programs will continue generationally. Current efforts in the developing world to combat postharvest food loss are often unsustainable; they typically depend on the continual input of experts from the developed world.