Submitted by The Global Harvest Initiative
This is the third year in a row that the Global Harvest Initiative (GHI) has sponsored the National Ag Day events in Washington D.C., and we applaud the efforts of the Agriculture Council of America (ACA) as it educates millions of young Americans on the contributions of agriculture today, and the importance of agriculture tomorrow to meet the needs of a growing world. This is especially important for the next generation, who represent the future of agriculture as the producers, business leaders, professors and policy makers of tomorrow.
GHI believes that it is critical to raise the visibility of food security and agricultural challenges, and to enhance our ability to address them through collaboration, partnerships and dialogue.
Unlike ever before, digital media is empowering every global citizen—from smallholder farmers to heads of state—to take an active role in the global conversation on agriculture. For example, there are now more than 800 million Facebook users and more than 100 million active Twitter users. Of the 7 billion global citizens today, 4.8 billion own a mobile device. These trends indicate how this generation, and the next, will communicate the importance of agriculture and collaborate to address hunger and global food security challenges.
As the world’s population moves rapidly to an estimated 9+ billion people by 2050, the challenges of meeting future agricultural demand are great. We believe this marks an incredible opportunity for future agriculture leaders, both here in the U.S. and abroad, to address global food security and agricultural productivity challenges in new and innovative ways, from research and technologies, to an unprecedented level of collaboration between the public and private sectors.
Meeting tomorrow’s global agricultural demand won’t be easy, but with young, talented minds working together, the GHI is confident that the challenges can be met.
We encourage you to join GHI’s online communities on Facebook and Twitter, where we will continue the conversation about meeting the agricultural needs of tomorrow. You can also visit us online at www.globalharvestinitiative.org to read our Harvest2050 blog, watch videos and view the latest news clips, reports and resources.
About The Global Harvest Initiative:
Established in 2009, The Global Harvest Initiative is a partnership among DuPont, IBM, John Deere and Monsanto with the goal of addressing hunger and food security by sustainably closing the global agricultural productivity gap. Every year, GHI releases its signature GAP Report™, an annual benchmark of the global rate of agricultural productivity.
