When you attend a conference, there is always a significant risk of being bored to death.
Joyfully, then, I was fairly blown away at the National Agri-Marketing Association (NAMA) conference in Kansas City the week of April 11, and not by the frightening winds.
Several of the speakers at NAMA were quite inspirational, and none more so than Jeff Simmons, winner of the Agribusiness Leader of the Year Award and president of Elanco Animal Health.
In his acceptance speech, Simmons made an impassioned plea to the producers of America, and their marketing people, to convey their commitment to growing safe, affordable and abundant food.
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Safe. Affordable. Abundant. These three elements are crucial to food production, says Simmons, and they make up the cause of today.
“We are centre stage right now,” Simmons told his audience.
If you can’t convey something over a cup of coffee and a scribbled-upon napkin, you can’t say it at all, Simmons argued. So he displayed his message on a simple graphic of a coffee shop napkin: 50-100-70.
This means that by 2050, the world will have to double its food supply and 70 percent of the increase must come from technology.
We have no choice, Simmons said. Hunger is the number one disease today, rearing its ugly head even in North America. For example, eight of 10 children in Indianapolis need, and get, a free lunch at school every day.
“Food is a moral right,” said Simmons. “It’s a basic human right.”
Technology enables that right, as well as the consumer’s right to choice and the environmental right of sustainability, he said.
He admitted that his message is not new or revolutionary, but the timing is crucial. The carbon footprint must be frozen, even as global farming must crank out more food than ever before.
The window of opportunity to explain these issues to the public is now open. The agriculture industry must speak up, make it personal, and move boldly forward – right now, said Simmons.
It was a moving speech. I was left thinking that whether you’re for or against technology driving agriculture forward, his numbers are bleak, his points are heartbreaking and we have to considerthat Simmons could well be right.
