Farm Science Review showcases the future of farming

Today, Amer­i­can farm­ers feed not only Amer­i­can con­sumers, but the hun­gry peo­ple of the world.

Will we be able to say that in 50 years?

That was the ques­tion on the minds of many peo­ple at the 50th annual Farm Sci­ence Review near Lon­don in mid-September.

Today, the world is six bil­lion peo­ple. There may be nine bil­lion or more in 50 years. Will the Amer­i­can farmer be capa­ble of feed­ing that many people?

New dairy milk­ing tech­nol­ogy was on dis­play at the Farm Sci­ence Review near Lon­don Sept. 18–20. (Photo by Gary Brock)

What changes in agri­cul­ture tech­nol­ogy will be needed to increase both yield and nutri­tional value in the crops we Amer­i­cans pro­duce? Will there be enough farm­ers in the United States in 50 years to meet the world’s needs?

Chuck Gam­ble, the Man­ager for the Farm Sci­ence Review is opti­mistic about the future. He said this year’s theme, “Fore­cast­ing the Future” is appro­pri­ate. “This year we are look­ing at the future, and how we are going to feed the peo­ple of the world 50 years from now,” he said.

This year more than 120,000 peo­ple attended the Farm Sci­ence Review. The annual event draws peo­ple from not just Ohio and the nation, but vis­i­tors from all over the world. Every­one wants to see what the future of farm­ing and agri­cul­ture will look like, and there is no bet­ter place to learn the future than at this gath­er­ing spon­sored by The Ohio State Uni­ver­sity Col­lege of Food, Agri­cul­tural and Envi­ron­men­tal Sciences.

That big title is impor­tant because the edu­ca­tional sup­port from a major uni­ver­sity is what makes this event unique.

When you walk around the 200-plus acres you imme­di­ately are struck by the OSU pres­ence. There are dozens of staffers in the dif­fer­ent agri­cul­tural sci­ences from OSU on hand to hold train­ing ses­sions and work­shops, as well as look at future trends in farming.

Walk­ing around the grounds of the Farm Sci­ence Review is an over­whelm­ing expe­ri­ence for any­one who has never attended the three-day exhi­bi­tion. Hun­dreds of ven­dors, dis­plays, new and future farm equip­ment, demon­stra­tions and tons of food line the “streets” of this agri­cul­tural city. But one inter­est­ing point was made to me fol­low­ing the event by one of the peo­ple work­ing at one of the ven­dor buildings.

The Farm Sci­ence Review isn’t an event just for farm­ers and those in agri­cul­ture. Fayette County’s Jason Gen­try points out that it is a great event to attend for everyone.

Gen­try, Seed Advi­sor, South­west Ohio for Beck’s Hybrids, said Fri­day that any­one would enjoy attend­ing the event to “see all the changes there have been in the farm­ing and agri­cul­ture indus­try.” He added that there is also a lot of great food there and plenty of infor­ma­tion and dis­plays on other top­ics such as gardening.

That’s a great point. You don’t have to be a farmer or directly involved in agri­cul­ture to enjoy this event. In fact, every­one would ben­e­fit from attend­ing, since all Amer­i­cans ben­e­fit from what farm­ers do every day — feed the world.

It is a great idea to learn more about how that is done and how feed­ing the world will be done in the future. I will be there in 2013, and hope to see many of you there!

(Gary Brock is Editor-in-Chief of ACRES.)

Posted by Tina Murdock on Oct 3 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.