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Sep. 23, 2011 Agri-Pulse reports: "The Food Dialogues," a town hall-style discussion presented by the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance (USFRA), sent aggies flocking to Facebook and Twitter social media outlets with comments, questions and updates about the nationwide panel topics. The USFRA event hosted a discussion between farmers and ranchers and Americans to answer their questions on how food is grown and raised with panels in New York; Washington D.C.; Fair Oaks, Indiana; and UC Davis in California. USFRA released its July and August surveys of farmers, ranchers and consumers during the event. Highlights of the research include: -93% of farmers believe consumer perception of modern farming is somewhat or not accurate. -While nearly all Americans agree that food production is important to the success of the country, they are split over whether it is going in the right or wrong direction. -Consumers think about food production constantly, yet know very little about how food is brought to the dinner table. -Consumers most want to know how chemicals and pesticides are used in farming. -Overwhelmingly, farmers and ranchers share the same values as consumers on issues related to environmental stewardship and animal care. The panels' topics ranged from genetically modified crops to government farm funding to consumer choices and food prices. The panel members were just as diverse, including academics, writers, policy makers, industry group leaders, farmers and ranchers. "What brought me to New York is the idea that we farmers and ranchers in the small towns like mine across America's heartland need to learn more about Americans' concerns and choices when it comes to eating the food we help produce," NCGA President Bart Schott said. "In addition, we'd like to tell them about what we do, especially the great progress underway in American agriculture today to help ensure healthy food for all." Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack made a guest appearance and answered questions from the Food Dialogues emcee, Claire Shipman. He commented on a recurring theme of the day, the ability for U.S. agriculture to feed a growing world population with declining resources and a smaller budget. "Farmers and ranchers are operating productively at four times more than rest of economy," Vilsack said. "We will not be able to continue this productivity or meet world demand unless we continue to find ways to be more productive with the land we have. I hope people understand that we ought not to reduce is in this research area." Vilsack's appearance at the Food Dialogues arrived during the same week President Obama introduced his deficit reduction plan that included $33 billion of cuts to farm programs. He said the plan presented one way to get to the amount of overall deficit reduction the nation needs. "It's not easy to get to the kind of reduction we're talking about," Vilsack told press after his appearance. "What people have to realize if they like the President's plan or not, somehow we need to get to that magic number." Dan Glickman, former Agriculture Secretary and member of the Washington, D.C. panel, said the decline in the national research budget for agriculture is "astonishingly low," but also that "no longer will Uncle Sam be providing the same kind of money to agriculture." A commonly revisited topic throughout the event was the overwhelming concern from consumers about increasing food prices. The panel members discussed varying factors that impact the price of food in the U.S. President of the American Farm Bureau Federation Bob Stallman reminded the audience that the cost of energy accounts for much of the price fluctuation. "Twenty percent of input cost for farmers and ranchers is energy," Stallman said. "Throughout food chain, energy cost has a high impact. Food price is directly correlated to price of oil." For more highlights of each panel discussion, go here Tweet |
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