EDITORIAL: Experimenting with agriculture is our best option for preparing for future generations’ needs

Posted 8/11/16

There are an estimated 570 million farms in the world and about 1 billion people working in agriculture right now, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. It’s thanks to their work that we’ve got food on our …

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EDITORIAL: Experimenting with agriculture is our best option for preparing for future generations’ needs

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Although most of us aren’t farmers, we’re all directly linked to agriculture because everyone eats. 

There are an estimated 570 million farms in the world and about 1 billion people working in agriculture right now, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. It’s thanks to their work that we’ve got food on our plates and they deserve a shoutout — which is why in today’s edition of the Tribune you will find a special section devoted entirely to agriculture. 

But, the farms of today aren’t like the farms of the past and they certainly won’t be like the farms of the future as places such as University of Wyoming’s Powell Research and Extension Center work to find new and improved ways of growing crops.

More efficiency is the name of the game in agriculture as the world’s population grows. 

To give some perspective, the world’s population was 2.5 billion in 1950 and today it’s about 7.3 billion. By 2030, the global population is anticipated to reach 8.5 billion and then 9.7 billion by 2050, according to the United Nations’ Department of Economic and Social Affairs. And in 2100, the population is anticipated to reach 11.2 billion. 

Meeting those demands will be difficult, particularly when the percentage of the population working on farms has decreased over the years.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of new American farmers dropped substantially in recent years. From 2007 to 2012, the number of new farmers who had been on their current operation for less than 10 years decreased 20 percent.

Fostering a new generation of farmers isn’t just a matter of getting young people to pick up the pitchfork, it’s also a matter of teaching today’s youth that farmers are just as valuable to society as any other profession. 

This is where educational groups such as the FFA and 4-H come into play. These groups nurture each kid’s interest in ag-related subjects — from raising livestock and growing crops to building robots and researching issues. These groups touch on everything because, whether directly or indirectly, agriculture is in everything.

There’s an incredible amount of science behind increasing crop yields, which is why we need schools to continue pushing for improved math and science education. We’re glad local educators continue to make math and science a priority and find creative ways to teach the subjects — and agriculture is a great way to bring it all together.

It’s almost terrifying to think that all of civilization owes its existence to a few inches of topsoil and the fact that it rains. But here in the Big Horn Basin it doesn’t rain enough, so an unprecedented amount of engineering and back-breaking labor went into creating our gravity-fed irrigation system to turn a barren high desert into a productive green farming community. 

It’s that combination of knowledge and elbow grease that we will need in the years ahead.

That was our past — and the projects featured in today’s special section are our future.

Improved efficiency through direct harvesting, working on herbicide carry-over and limited irrigation, researching new varieties of beans are just some of the ways the University of Wyoming’s Powell Research and Extension Center and others are working to improve agriculture and we couldn’t be happier that our community is chipping in to find ways to make harvests more bountiful. 

After all, humanity’s future depends on it. 

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