[Editor’s note: Randy Krotz is CEO of the US Farmers & Ranchers Alliance.]
Activists and others [say] the food system [is] broken, yet agriculture strives to continually improve with each generation. Farmers and ranchers spend every day doing their best to enhance our land, water and soil in addition to growing nutritious food for consumers across our nation and beyond our borders.
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[T]ake GMO crops, which have been a lightning rod for controversy. … PG Economics found [that] if GMO crops had not been available, farmers worldwide would have needed to cultivate 45 million more acres of land to produce the same amount of corn, soybeans, cotton, and canola to maintain global production levels…. That’s 11 percent of the arable land in the U.S.
As a result, farmers are actually doing more with less. Not only are they preserving land, but they’ve also reduced water use. Field to Market [cites research showing that] between 1980 and 2011, irrigation in the U.S. has decreased for corn by 53 percent, cotton by 75 percent, potatoes by 38 percent, rice by 53 percent, soybeans by 42 percent and wheat by 12 percent.
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Let’s celebrate our successes, inspire new innovation and technology for all food production practices, and avoid using fear to encourage consumers to choose one diet over another.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: National Ag Day — Our food system is flourishing, not broken
For more background on the Genetic Literacy Project, read GLP on Wikipedia
