James Pettigrew remembers when farmers seemed to have reached a peak of productivity and efficiency.
That was in 1965, after the first primitive corn hybrids came on the market, and per-acre production was only half of what it is today.
This difference between what farmers could achieve then and what farmers can achieve now is why Pettigrew, a livestock feed expert at the University of Illinois, thinks it is possible to double food production by 2050.
“I think the challenge is different, but I’m not at all pessimistic,” said Pettigrew in an interview after his presentation at the Western Nutrition Conference.
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“I think we’re going to do it.”
A number of speakers at the conference talked about this increased need for food production by 2050, with all stating that research and development are the keys to improved productivity and efficiency.
Pettigrew smiled as he remembered the sense of triumph farmers and researchers felt in the mid-1960s when scientific advancements had increased production far beyond what was possible just a few years earlier.
That hasn’t necessarily helped farmers, who have had to contend with bigger world supplies of grains and oilseeds as a result, and who have had to keep up with the changes or be left behind.
“The way my dad farmed, he couldn’t survive now,” said Pettigrew.
“We’re just so much more efficient, so much more technologically advanced, so much more complicated in the way we address the production system.”
But Pettigrew worries that the public sector research that led to the “Green Revolution” is being undermined by government research cutbacks. Corporate research might not fill the void completely, he added.
“That (privately funded) information may be more closely held than research has been in the past,” said Pettigrew.
“If we don’t see much support from our governments in terms of research and commitment to food production . . . where will that innovation come from?”
Pettigrew said he isn’t confident that food production will double between now and 2050, only that it could double if research continues to be supported.
