Binder 1

Published on ANSC 100: Introduction to Animal Industries (https://elearning-ag.vmhost.psu.edu/courses/ansc100)

As the baseball player Yogi Berra famously quipped You can observe a lot by just watching .Well, if you have been watching the world around you, I bet you noticed that it is getting prettycrowded. You may have also noticed some of the challenges that come along with all thesepeople. In this course, we are going to spend a lot of time talking about one of these challenges.What is it?, you ask. Why, it is the challenge of feeding all these people (this is not a course onquantum physics you know!). Now, maybe feeding the world wasnt on the top of your list. Youmay have been thinking about averting nuclear Armageddon, or saving the whales, or coming upwith a cure for cancer. The reason that it may not be top in your mind is that we live in a countrywhere food is abundant and cheap. But if you think about it, you will begin to appreciate how trulyimportant increasing the worlds food supply will be to your future prosperity and that of allcitizens of the world. You may even start to agree with me that feeding the world in a sustainablefashion is the most important problem we have to solve over the next 50 years or so. We eat(snack or meal) between 3 and 5 times every day (for me it can be even more!). Try not eatingfor a couple of days (or even one day), and you will see how important food is to you. But I amgetting ahead of myself. I have not yet shared the magnitude of the population problem. So letsdo that first.

I am sometimes surprised with the answers I get when I ask students to tell me approximatelyhow many people are on this planet; you know, Earth. Before I tell you, write your guess down ona piece of paper so you can see how close you get. While you are at it, write down the populationof the United States of America. Also, write down the top three countries in terms of population.Finally, of those three top population countries, which ones population is growing at the fastestrate? Now tuck your answers away until later.

To help you start to put real numbers to the challenge of world population growth, I would like youto watch this video by one of my favorite scientists, Dr. Hans Rosling [1]. Take careful note ofwhere world population was in 1960, where it is today, and where it is predicted to go by 2050.Also, note what Dr. Rosling points out as factors that affect the rate of population growth. Nowenjoy! If you would like to activate the close captioning feature, look for the box on the lower leftside under the video.

So now you know that the population is over 7 billion (~7.1 billion as of December 2013). Yes,that is billion with a B. For you mathematicians that is:

7,100,000,000

If you want to get a real-time feel for how fast the world population is growing (along with a bunch

https://elearning-ag.vmhost.psu.edu/courses/ansc100/print/book/export/h...

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of other interesting statistics) go to: World Meters [2] . Remember, most of these counters andstatistics are estimates, so they might differ by a few million with others you may find on the web.

You now also know that world population is heading for just over 9 billion by 2050 (~9.3 billion)and some estimates put the world population at over 10 billion by 2100. Putting it another way,the world population will increase by about 30% in your lifetime. I hope you and I both are stillaround in 2050. And, yes, everyone will need to eat!

Now, what are the three largest population countries? Well, if you guessed China, India and theUS (followed by Indonesia and Brazil) you were right on. China and India are converging at about1.3 billion each. I say converging, because their population growth curves are actually starting tomove in opposite directions (See Figure 1 below). Chinas population is leveling off and shouldactually start to decline in the next decade. This is due, in part, to the one child policy put inplace by Chinese Communist Party Leader Deng Xiaoping in 1979. With this policy there wererewards (cash payments) for families having only one child, and severe penalties put in place(fines, etc) for those families with more than one child. And it worked! It is estimated that thispolicy alone resulted in 400 million fewer children being born. This is almost 100 million morethan the total population of the U.S. which stands at just over 300 Million (317 million in 2013).How did you do with your estimates? So, one of the take home messages here is that smallpercentage changes in huge numbers can result in really big numbers.

Figure 1. Population Estimates in the top 5 most populace countries. U.N. Department ofEconomic and Social Affairs [3].

Now, lets get back to the converging population numbers of China and India. If Chinaspopulation is starting to level off, that must mean that Indias is still increasing. This increase is areflection of the fact that the average number of children per mother in India is 2.7. When youcompare this with 2.0 for U.S. women and 1.3 for Chinese women, you begin to see how fertilityimpacts population growth. Now, if you were paying attention to Dr. Roslings video presentationon world population, you would be correct to point out that while China, India and the U.S. arelarge population countries that use a high percentage of resources, they are not the problemgoing forward relative to global population growth . In other words, the big three will not becontributing greatly to the growing world population (India a little bit, but not much). Dr. Roslingpointed out the reason for this in the video.. poverty and high infant mortality rates contributes


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to high birth rates primarily on the African continent. You only need to look at the number ofchildren per mother in some African countries to see the magnitude of the problem. For example,Niger, Uganda and Congo all have more than 6 children per mother. This is illustrated in Figure 2where you can see that, in Niger, the actual number of children per mother is right around 7! NowFigure 2 below shows the relationship between number of children per mother and wealth. Youcan see the countries with the greatest poverty, have the greatest number of children per mother.Remember how Dr. Rosling characterized their aspirations? "Food and shoes". So affluence(wealth) is a major contributor to reducing the birth rate. Countries like China and India that aremoving into the developed country category (are becoming more wealthy) are reducing theirbirth rates. That is why they are not part of the population growth problem going forward. Anotherfactor which reduces population is the high infant survival rates and the increasing urbanizationof these countries. I think Dr. Rosling's video made this point quite clearly. This also illustrateswhy there is such a global push to increase infant and child survival rates (see: GatesFoundation [4]).

Figure 2. Relationship between number of children per woman (birth rate) and wealth.The Y-axis is number of children per woman and the X-axis is per capita grossdomestic product.

We can look at population growth another way in Figure 3; by continent. When you look at it thisway, you can see population on the African continent will nearly double during the first half of the21 century (2000-2050) while population in North America, Asia, Latin America, Europe, andOceania (Australia, New Zealand, and South Asia, see Figure 4 [5]) will be stable or actuallydecline over the next 40 years. So, impoverished people in Africa, struggling to afford food andshoes, will be the vast majority of the increase in population over the next 40 years. And, as Dr.Rosling pointed out, this is already ongoing and cannot be stopped. The great challenge will bewhether they can advance their economies (increase their wealth) and improve child survivalrates to bring down their birth rates in the second half of the twenty first century.

UN 2008 estimates and medium variant projections (in millions).

Year World Asia Africa Europe LatinAmericaNorthernAmerica Oceania


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2000 6,115 3,698(60.5%)819

(13.4%)727

(11.9%) 521 (8.5%) 319 (5.2%) 31 (0.5%)

2005 6,512 3,937(60.5%)921

(14.1%)729

(11.2%) 557 (8.6%) 335 (5.1%) 34 (0.5%)

2010 6,909 4,167(60.3%)1,033

(15.0%)733

(10.6%) 589 (8.5%) 352 (5.1%) 36 (0.5%)

2015 7,302 4,391(60.1%)1,153

(15.8%)734

(10.1%) 618 (8.5%) 368 (5.0%) 38 (0.5%)

2020 7,675 4,596(59.9%)1,276

(16.6%)733

(9.6%) 646 (8.4%) 383 (5.0%) 40 (0.5%)

2025 8,012 4,773(59.6%)1,400

(17.5%)729

(9.1%) 670 (8.4%) 398 (5.0%) 43 (0.5%)

2030 8,309 4,917(59.2%)1,524

(18.3%)723

(8.7%) 690 (8.3%) 410 (4.9%) 45 (0.5%)

2035 8,571 5,032(58.7%)1,647

(19.2%)716

(8.4%) 706 (8.2%) 421 (4.9%) 46 (0.5%)

2040 8,801 5,125(58.2%)1,770

(20.1%)708

(8.0%) 718 (8.2%) 431 (4.9%) 48 (0.5%)

2045 8,996 5,193(57.7%)1,887

(21.0%)700

(7.8%) 726 (8.1%) 440 (4.9%) 50 (0.6%)

2050 9,150 5,231(57.2%)1,998

(21.8%)691

(7.6%) 729 (8.0%) 448 (4.9%) 51 (0.6%)

Figure 3. Change in population in major regions of the world from 2000 to 2050. Wikipedia.

One final comment about the #3 large population country; thats us, the U.S. The U.S. populationis projected to grow slowly over the next 40 years from our current 312 million to about 470million. A significant portion of this growth will come from immigrants and their children. This isour heritage. We are a country of immigrants and their arrival is helping the U.S. avoid thepopulation declines that occurring in Japan and Russia. Our current birth rate is very close the2.1. This number, 2.1, is the replacement rate and critical for our countries long term economichealth. Think of it this way, at 2.1 children per woman, each couple replaces themselves withoutaddition to the population. What about the 0.1? you ask. Well this accounts for infant andchildhood mortality.

CONTINUE TO NEXT PAGE

Links:[1] http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth.html[2] http://www.worldometers.info[3] http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/index.htm[4] http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Pages/home.aspx[5] https://elearning-ag.vmhost.psu.edu/courses/ansc100/sites/edu.courses.ansc100/files/course_images/fig4.png


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Figure 5. Effects of level of education onnumber of children per mother in China.


Now, certainly wealth and child survival rates are key tocontrolling population growth, but there is another big factorinvolved in the declining rate of population growth in manyparts of the world. It is a factor near and dear to my heart,namely education. Yes, education. If you examine Figure 5to the right, you will see that the number of children permother in China is greatly affected by the amount ofeducation received by the mother. Those mothers with littleor no schooling have greater than 2 children per motherand those with the greatest amount of education havefewer than 0.5 children; and what good is a half a childanyway! (remember, its an average). Whether or not amother obtains schooling is driven by costs (poor canafford less than wealthy), availability (rural can find lessthan urban) and religious/cultural practices (some restrictaccess to education). For example, in Figure 6 below, youcan see that among majority Muslim countries, there is awide disparity in the amount of education a womenreceives, from levels that are typical for western countries (>12 years school) to just a few years of school. And justlike the graph on education and fertility in China, those countries where women attain the highestlevel of education, have the lowest birth rates. In this example, the birth rate is more than doublefor those with the least amount of education. What about the U.S.? Does this trend hold in acountry where the vast majority of women attain at least some high school education? Yes itdoes. In a 2002 study done by the Center for immigration studies (Figure 7 [1]. AmericanCommunity Survey, 2002) native-born U.S. citizens with less than high school education had 2.2children per woman. This was even higher, at 3.3 children per woman, in immigrant women withthe same (low) level of education. But those achieving the highest levels of education (collegedegrees and higher) had only 1.7 and 1.9 children per woman for native and immigrant women,respectively. So education is the key to reduce population growth. And remember when it comesto education, it is all about cost, availability and freedom of access.


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Figure 6. Effect of level of education on number of children per women in majority Muslim countries.

One final thought on birth rates. While I told you earlier that 2.1 children per family is optimal; youknow the replacement rate. If a couple has two children, they replace themselves in the worldpopulation without added or decreasing it. Now some of you might rightly argue that we shouldbe shooting for less than 2 so that world population actually decreases. Well, while this might begood for the planet, it is not so good for countries. Once population growth falls belowreplacement rate, countries begin to have problems which grow greater over time (the classicsnowball effect). Here is how it works. Most countries have some sort of social safety net (akasocial security or pension) to care for their citizens in their old age (non-working years). The costof this social safety net is borne largely by the younger workers. So, when population growth fallsbelow the replacement rate, the average age of the population increases (it grows older) leavingfewer workers to supporting more retirees . This can also happen when there is a sudden spikein the birth rate like occurred right after World War II. This created the baby boomer generation,the oldest of which started retiring in 2011 and the youngest of which wont retire for another 20years (like me!). Whether the imbalance is caused by a spike in births or a decline in births, it canreally spiral out of control and devastate a countrys economy. But lets also look on the brightside, one unintended benefit of a declining workforce is that wages and benefits tend to increaseas companies compete for the best workers . If this is taken to the extreme, companies maydecide to relocate to another country with a lower wage structure. We see this happening all overthe world right now. Two countries that have population growth rates below their replacementrates are Japan and Russia. Both of these counties are expected see population declines ofgreater than 20% over the next 40 years.


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Figure 8. Top 10 high urban population countries.

Now, let me try to steer this discussion back to where we started and focus on the challenge offeeding this growing world population. One big demographic change that has occurred over thepast 50 years is that more people are moving from rural areas (countryside) to urban areas(cities). Now, dont be alarmed, this is actually a good thing for the planet. For example, services(electricity, sewers, police, hospital care to name just a few) are provided much more efficiently tourban populations than for rural populations. For some excellent reading on the benefits ofurbanization I suggest are real good (optional) book by Stewart Brand title Whole EarthDiscipline: an ecopragmatist manifesto (Viking Penquin, 2009). Urbanization leads to efficiency(and innovation) and, as you will learn throughout this course, it is all about efficiency;especially when it comes to agriculture. Figure 8 above shows the top 10 countries urbanizedpopulation. Once again, the U.S. is in the top 5 with over 250 million of our 310 million citizensnow living in cities. What is driving this urbanization you ask? One big factor is food security . Ascountries, like the U.S., become better at feeding their people, a whole basketful of benefitsbegin to accumulate. Will we talk about this more in the next lecture, but two big benefits are thatfewer people are required to produce food (so they move from the country to the city) and foodprices decrease leaving people with more money in their pockets. This also leads toimprovements in health (adequate food supply is necessary for health) and increased childsurvival. As you might have already guessed, the Unites States leads the world in efficient foodproduction, producing far in excess to what it actually needs to feed its population. Figure 9below shows the average number of calories produced per capita (per person) in the top 10 foodproducing countries. Even with our large population we lead the world with 3754 calories of foodper person, almost 25% more than the world average of 2804 calories per person. Two benefitsthat arise from this are that our food is relatively inexpensive to purchase and, that we can exportthe excess to help counter or trade imbalance (balance of exports and imports). This imbalancelargely results from importing consumer goods (electronics, clothes etc) and energy (oil) fromother countries.


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Figure 9. Top 10 countries for calorie supply (food) per capita.

So lets summarize what we have covered. The world population is currently at 7.1 billion andheading to 9.3 billion (almost 50% increase) in the next 40 years. However, across the planet, therate of increase in population growth is slowing (see Figure 10 below). Most of this populationgrowth will occur in the poorest countries in Africa whose citizens struggle to have enough foodto eat and where birth rate and child mortality (death) is greatest. The top three most populacecountries are China, India and the U.S. China and India are on opposite population growthtrajectories with Chinas population reaching a plateau and starting to decline and Indiascontinuing to rise to 2050. The U.S. population will rise gradually over the next 40 years, largelyas a result of immigrants with a higher birth rate. As countries get wealthier and better educated,they reduce their birth rates to more sustainable levels. From the standpoint of countries, abirthrate of 2.1 children per women is ideal and is referred to as the replacement rate. Anythingbelow (or above) this creates problems for countries as it will eventually lead to adisproportionate number of retirees, the cost of which must be borne by fewer number ofworkers. Oh, and did I mention all these people, 50% more in your lifetime, will have toeat?!


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Figure 10. Change in the rate of population growth from 1950 to 2050. World Bank [2], World Development Indicators.

Now, here is a tickler for the next lecture, 50% more people to feed in the next 40 years usingroughly the same amount of land for agriculture (the world is not getting any bigger you know). How will we.I mean you.do it?


Links:[1] https://elearning-ag.vmhost.psu.edu/courses/ansc100/sites/edu.courses.ansc100/files/course_images/fig7.png[2] http://data.worldbank.org/


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Bigger Yields and a Smaller Footprint

This lecture will discuss the impact that improvements in production efficiency have had on costand availability of food. We will investigate whether we can continue to rely on increases inefficiency of food production to meet our growing demand for food. The link between efficiency ofproduction and profitability and sustainability in agriculture will be discussed. We will cover, justbriefly, the role of Universities like Penn State in improving agricultural efficiency. In addition wewill investigate the effects of inexpensive food on a familys budget.

In the last section we tried to get an accurate picture of the global population problem. This helpsus understand the challenge we have feeding the world. Remember, we are at approximately 7.1billion people in the fall of 2013 and we are predicted to add another 2.3 billion by 2050. Of the7.1 billion people on the planet right now, very close to 1 billion (~950,000) fall into the categoryof food insecure (See Figure 1 below). An individual who is food insecure does not have accessto sufficient food during at least some time of the year. Food insecurity can range fromoccasional hunger to malnutrition to starvation.

Figure 1. World Food Insecure Population 1996 -2010.


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So, how are we are going to feed these 2.3 billion new hungry mouths? The first challenge is thatwe will need to produce the food using roughly the same amount of land. I say this because mostuseful agricultural lands are now under cultivation or pasture (See Figure 2 below). And wecertainly dont want to cut down more forested lands or degrade wetlands and streams to makemore agricultural fields. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO [1])predicts that only about 70 million hectares (1 hectare is about 2.5 acres), roughly a 5% increase,will be added for agricultural production by 2050. So we will need to produce about 70% morefood (Oxfam International [2]) and do it largely by increasing the efficiency of production. Thatmeans that agriculture will need to produce higher yields per acre of land and more productionper animal . Oh, and by the way, most of the population growth, and hence demand for food, willoccur on the African continent that is plagued by poor growing conditions for plants or animals inmany areas. The challenge is a daunting one to say the least!

Figure 2. Change in Agricultural Acres inProduction and Urbanization in the U.S. from1950 2000.Science Time [3]

Agricultural Efficiency and the Land Grant University Mission

Now, before you start getting depressed, lets look at what agriculture has accomplished in termsof efficiency of production and the role Penn State and other Land Grant Universities haveplayed in this growth.

Actually, the record of increasing efficiency of production in agriculture is pretty impressive (SeeFigure 3 below). Remember, efficiency is defined as increasing output per unit of input .Increased efficiency almost always results in improvements in profitability and can makeindustries more sustainable. Remember, if a business is not profitable, it will go bankrupt.Sustainability is a word we hear a lot today. The best definition I have heard for sustainability asit relates to agriculture is practices/activities that meet the needs of the present generationwithout compromising the ability to meet the needs of future generations . Continued growth inefficiency is critical to feed the growing world population, and it must be done sustainably. Figure3 represents efficiency as total factor productivity which takes into account all the variousinputs (factors) required to generate the agricultural output. For purposes in this lecture these twoterms can be used interchangeably. Figure 3 shows a pretty impressive and sustained increasein productivity over the last 60 years.


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Figure 3. Change in Agricultural Productivity in the U.S.from 1948-2008.

Table 2 shows the change in agricultural efficiency in percent from 1990 to 2006. You can seethat the world average productivity growth during this period is 1.5% per year. The United Stateshas done a bit better at 1.79% and China has really been increasing productivity, averaging3.5%. Now, there is more to these numbers than meets the eye. First, you should understandthat the better you are at something, the harder it is to improve. So, for example, China looks likethey are the masters of agriculture with a 3.5% average productivity growth per year and the U.S.looks pretty ordinary at 1.79%. Well, the reason for this is that China in 1990 was far behind thedeveloped world in terms of productivity and could achieve rapid improvements in productivitymerely by implementing practices that have been used widely in the developed world fordecades. Contrast this with the U.S. which has one of the worlds most sophisticated andtechnologically advanced agricultural production systems. In the U.S., continued improvement inproductivity gets harder each year. And remember, it is this productivity growth that we arerelying on to feed the world in 2050. Whether agriculture can continue to meet this challenge hasbeen weighing on the minds scientists, economists and world leaders. This worry is conciselypresented by Robert J. Samuelson in his article The Economic Megaworry [4] published inNewsweek magazine in 2007. Mr. Sameulson is an opinion writer for the Washington Post andwrites a weekly column for Newsweek. I would like you to read this article carefully (it isrequired!).Try to understand why we all should be worried about sustaining growth in productivity,regardless of the economic sector.

Agricultural productivity growth was above average in large lower andmiddle-income countries in 1990-2006.

Country 1990 GDPper captia12005 GDPper captia2

GDP per capitagrowth rate,1990-2006

Agricultural totalfactor productivitygrowth, 1990-2006

2005 international dollars Percent

China 1,123 4,105 8.40 3.50

Colombia 4,943 5,910 1.50 2.40

India 1,185 2,225 4.20 1.60

Indonesia 2,089 3,212 3.20 1.90

Mexico 9,155 11,459 1.70 2.60


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U.S. 31,630 41,774 1.75 1.79

Worldaverage 8,501 11,239 1.60 1.50

(149countries)

(149countries) (149 countries) (172 countries)

Note: GDP - gross domestic product. an international dollar is a hypotheticalcurrency that is used as a means of translating and comparing costs from onecountry to another using a common reference point the U.S. dollar.

1 3-year average, 1989-912 3-year average, 2004-06

Source: USDA Economic Research Service using the World Bank's WorldDevelopment indicators, 2008; and "Total Factor Productivity In the GlobalAgricultural Economy: Evidence from FAO Data" by Keith Fugile, In the ShiftingPatterns of Agricultural Production and Productivity Worldwide, 2008.

Now what about agricultural productivity? It is interesting that 100 years ago just under half(41%) of all Americans were farmers. In the last 100 years improvements in efficiency ofagricultural production have reduced the percentage of Americans living on farms to about 2%,and only half of those list farming as their primary occupation (http://www.epa.gov/... [5]). So wehave less than 2% of our population feeding the other 98%. This is a record of productivitygrowth that we can all be proud of.


Links:[1] http://www.fao.org[2] http://www.oxfam.org/en/about[3] http://www.sciencetime.org/blog/?page_id=213[4] https://elearning-ag.vmhost.psu.edu/courses/ansc100/sites/edu.courses.ansc100/files/pdfs/Economic_Mega-worry-1.pdf[5] http://www.epa.gov/agriculture/ag101/demographics.html


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Agricultural Efficiency and the Land Grant University Mission

Much of this increase in agriculture efficiency has some connection to Dear Old State and otheruniversities and colleges like us! Penn State is one of a number of Land Grant universitieswhose mission was established by the Morrill Act of 1862 signed into law by President AbrahamLincoln. The Morrill Act was An Act donating public lands to the several States and [Territories]which may provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts (OurDocuments [1]). The states then sold this land and used the proceeds to establish Land Grantcolleges and universities. In 2011, our country celebrated the 150 year anniversary of the MorrillAct. And we should celebrate, because their impact on agricultural efficiency has beentremendous.

Land Grant universities and colleges have educated generations of students who might nototherwise had been able to afford a college education at private colleges or universities. Inaddition, they have conducted original research to improve agriculture (among other fields).Additional acts of Congress, including the Smith-Lever Act of 1914, enhanced the mission ofthe Land Grants. The Smith Level Act had as its goal to inform citizens of the newestdevelopments in agriculture and home economics, by establishing the system of CooperativeExtension. You may have heard of Cooperative Extension or just Extension because theExtension Service exists in some form or another in most counties in Pennsylvania andthroughout the country. Extension agents are employed by the university and are tasked withkeeping the public informed about the latest advances in agriculture. In recent years the missionof extension has grown beyond just agriculture and home economics and is embeddedthroughout the entire university; we call this Outreach. So, now you see the tripartite mission ofthe Land Grant Universities and colleges:

affordable education for all citizens (teaching);1. original research contributing new knowledge (research) and2. transmitting this knowledge to the citizens of the state, nation and world(Outreach/Extension).

3.

So with this brief history of the Land Grant institutions like Penn State, lets see how they havecontributed to the challenge of feeding the world.

One way to look at the effects of improvement in agricultural efficiency is to see how it hasaffected the way we have spent our money over time. I am talking, of course, about consumerspending. It is the biggest driver of economic activity in the country, so, as consumer spendinggoes, so goes the economy. Now, lets see if we can find evidence for an impact of increasedefficiency- total factor productivity- on the way we spend our money.


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Percentage Distribution ofConsumer Spending in the U.S.in 1901

In a publication titled 100 Years of Consumer Spending [2] (USDA ERS), economists with theDepartment of Agriculture reported statistics on how the average U.S. family spent its money inthe year 1901 (about 110 years ago). You will remember references to this report on theSamuelson article you just read. If you would like to read the entire article, you can but it is notrequired.

When we look at consumer spending, we can break it down into broad categories. Thesecategories are compared over 100 years of U.S. history in this report. Figure 4 shows that threemain categories accounted for the bulk of consumer spending in 1901: Housing (23.3%),Clothing (14.0%) and Food (42.5%). So food, clothing and shelter took up the bulk of the budgetback in 1901. This left just slightly over 20% of the budget available for all other activities(savings, education, entertainment, philanthropy, etc). It is pretty clear that the average Americanfamily in 1901 [3] spent most of its money on food.

Percentage Distribution ofConsumer Spending 2002-3

Figure 5 shows this same average U.S. family 100 years later in 2002-3. In that year, thepercentage of income a family spent on food dropped to right around 13%; the amount spent onclothing also decreased while housing costs increased a bit. The result of this tremendousreduction in the cost of food was that the average family in 2002 [4] had more than double thediscretionary spending (savings, investment, entertainment, education, charity etc) of a family in1901. With fewer families farming and more wealth, our country rocketed forward in terms ofeconomic development. Education, innovation and home ownership all increased. Our countrybecame the number one economy in the world. What in agriculture drove this increase inefficiency? Well, I already mentioned a big contributor, the Land Grant colleges and universities.They developed and refined agricultural practices and then, through the Extension service,transmitted that knowledge to farmers all over the country. In addition, we educated students that


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went back to family farms and put their new knowledge to good use making farms more efficientand profitable.

So, there were tremendous changes in agriculture during this 100 year period and many of thesestemmed from new knowledge developed at Land Grant universities. By the way, did you knowthat Penn State and Michigan State were the first two Land Grants chartered in the U.S. , asshown to the right? During this time our country matured through the mechanical revolution andbenefited from new tools and machines like tractors and the mechanical hay bailer that madefarm work less arduous (if only a bit!). Agriculture then moved through the chemical revolutionwith the development of chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides that increased yieldstremendously and improved the quality of our food. Finally, during the last 40 years, agriculturalwent through the genetic or green revolution where advances in plant and animal breeding alongwith more precise genetic manipulations and increased use of biotechnologies improved cropand animal performance and agricultural efficiency.

I would be remiss, at this point, if I did not pause to tell you about one Land Grant scientist who iscredited with playing a large role in the green revolution. This is a shining example of the role thatscience and research have played in agricultural efficiency. Who is this great person? you ask.Would it help if I told you he was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1970 and is credited withsaving millions of lives world-wide with his work on crop genetics and production systems? Thatscientist is Dr. Normal Borlaug, and you should remember his name and his contributions. Youwould be hard pressed to find a scientist anywhere who has done so much for so many. I wouldlike you to view a brief video trailer (below) about Dr. Borlaugs work. Pay particular attention tothe passion with which he describes his lifes work. We will need another generation of scientists,teachers, farmers and citizens with the same passion if we are to meet the challenges of feedingthe growing world population. Perhaps you will find this passion in yourself.


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Lets summarize what we have learned in this lecture. One hundred years ago almost half of theU.S. population was engaged in farming and the typical family spent 43% of its income one food.Today less than 2% of our population lives on farms and families spend less than 15% of theirincome on food. That savings has gone to improve our quality of life, to invest in education,science and technical innovation, to provide a social safety net and support the arts; basically, toprovide us with the high quality of life we all enjoy. If you doubt this, do this experiment. Look atyour budget and put aside about 50% for food (like in 1901). Now, pay for housing, transportationand clothing. How much do you have left? Pretty scary? In a nutshell, feeding the world whilecontinuing to enjoy a high quality of life is going to depend on continued growth in total factorproductivity or efficiency of agricultural production. The increased production needed to feed theworld in 2050 will come from roughly the same amount of agricultural lands and it is going to relyon science and technology. How will we accomplish this? Well, in the next lecture Dr. Ethertonwill tell you how and give you some present day examples. He will be discussing the topic of theimpact of science and biotechnologies on agricultural production.

The problems to be resolved

Will we be able to produce enough food at affordable prices or will rising food prices drivemore of the world's population into poverty and hunger?How much spare capacity in terms of land and water do we have to feed the world in 2050?What are the new technologies that can help us use scarce resources more efficiently,increase and stabilize crop and livestock yields?Are we investing enough in research and development for breakthroughs to be available intime?Will new technologies be available to the people who will need them most - the poor?How much do we need to invest in order to help agriculture adapt to climate change, andhow much can agriculture contribute to mitigating extreme weather events?


Links:[1] http://www.ourdocuments.gov/


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[2] http://www.bls.gov/opub/uscs/report991.pdf[3] https://elearning-ag.vmhost.psu.edu/courses/ansc100/sites/edu.courses.ansc100/files/course_images/table5.png[4] https://elearning-ag.vmhost.psu.edu/courses/ansc100/sites/edu.courses.ansc100/files/course_images/table2lesson1.png


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This discussion revolves around the fact the world population is going to grow dramatically in the next30 to 40 years. This population increase will place great pressure on producing sufficient food for thepopulation. Next, I will talk about the very important role that science and technology will play as partof the solution, and I will focus on the plant and animal biotechnology successes that we've witnessedover the last 20 years. Lastly, I will talk about threats to developing scientific solutions (biotechnologysolutions) for feeding the growing world population.

First its important to appreciate what the food system is. When you go to the grocery store, you seethousands of items there. Many people really don't think very much about how all of the food got tothat distribution point.

The entire food system starts with commodity production - that is planting the seeds or growing theanimals that will eventually become food. This chart shows that commodities flow through the processof development and enhancement. A product is developed and enhanced by food processors. So, forexample, a potato that's produced on a farm in Idaho can be sold as fresh potato, as mashedpotatoes, sliced potatoes, french fries, or potato chips. Food distribution then takes place and allowsall these products to get to grocery stores across the country. An average grocery store in the UnitedStates sells about 23,000 to 40,000 items. The next component in the food system is distribution toretailers and restaurants where consumers in developed countries avail themselves of this wonderfulbounty.


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This chart from the United Nations Population Division shows that the world population is growingrapidly. Currently there are about 7.1 billion people in the world and projections are that by 2050 thiswill increase to somewhere between 8 and 10 billion. My guess is that well witness a populationgrowth to about 10 billion individuals. How are we going to feed these extra folks? Who's going to payfor the development and technology that will be needed?

The challenge that the global village is confronting is related to the following points below:

Population2013: 7.1 billion2050: 9.5 billion

Cultivable Crop Land per capita

0.45 ha. in 19660.25 ha. in 19980.15 ha. in 2050

Malnutrition/Poverty (2007)923 million people suffer from hunger/malnutrition (up 75 million) 1.3 billion afflicted bypoverty

CHALLENGE --- Increase food production sustainably on same crop land area of approx 1.5billion hectares by 2050

The challenge that the global village confronts is related to the following points. I just discussed thefact that the world population is going to grow dramatically. This has huge ramifications on the amountof cropland available for food production on a per capita or per person basis. That number will dropdramatically. In fact it is already decreasing. For example, in 1966, 0.45 hectares per person wereavailable for crop production. Projections are that in 2050 well have about 0.15 hectares per person.So it's obvious that as the land available for food production decreases while population growth takesplace, that well have to produce more food per unit of farm ground. To do this will require what I referto as improved productive efficiency. From a plant production standpoint, this means that well haveto produce more corn per acre, more soybeans per acre, or more apples per tree. In the case ofanimal agriculture it means that we need to produce more lean, edible meat or muscle protein per unitof food consumed by the meat animal. In dairy cows it pertains to producing more milk per unit of feedconsumed.


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One of the challenges that we currently face in the global village is that there are about 900 tohundred million to 1 billion people that suffer from hunger and malnutrition. While many of us live indeveloped countries and have an abundance of available food at the grocery store, about 1 billionpeople don't have that luxury. This raises an enormous question: If we have this many people now,how are we going to feed a burgeoning population going forward? That's a daunting question and it'sreally a topic that could be discussed in an entire class. So the challenge that we confront is toincrease food production sustainably on the same cropland area that we presently have - which willbe about 1.5 billion hectares by 2050.

There's been a lot of discussion about how much food will be needed in the future. I have calculatedan estimate of what food production needs are. For more information you can go to PSU AnimalScience Blogs [1], this will take you to my blog. In the blog, I talk about the assumptions I made. By 2050 we will need about 14.3 trillion pounds of food per year. Currently the world produces about 9.9trillion pounds. (What is a trillion? That's a big number thats very hard to get your head wrappedaround. One illustration is that one trillion seconds would be 32 thousand years.)

So the question is how are we going to do this? My view is that we need to devote more resources toincrease science (all scientific fields) in order to develop new technologies that will enhance foodproduction efficiency. You might ask Beyond producing food, why is this important? Well from a foodsecurity standpoint, it's really important. Food security is simply producing enough food to meetnutrient needs of the population. If we don't produce enough food for the population, then you can askthe question What happens?

Can we have national security in the absence of food security? The answer is no. Please appreciatethat the current food system is very robust and that we produce a lot of food in the United States,however, the food production system is very vulnerable. There are ways that it could be greatlyhampered by an animal disease or plant disease, that could lead to a shortfall in food production. Justthink what would happen if you went to the grocery store and about half of the shelves were empty.People would likely frantically hoard food and societal norms as we know them would be dramaticallydifferent. A food crisis would be a recipe for rebellion and political upheaval.

So it's clear that food security is key to global peace. This is not widely appreciated fact. In fact, FranzFishler, candidate for Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization said: Food securityis becoming more and more an issue of national security. Many countries don't have food security orsufficient food security and that poses considerable threats relative to their national security. Hungrypopulations are unstable populations from a political standpoint. Wars tend to erupt when people arehungry.

So to summarize, the issue is: how are we going to feed the world in 2050? Here are the keychallenges: we need to feed 9 to 10 billion people, feed them better and more nutritious food, keep inmind that we've got a lot of malnourished and hungry peoples, how are we going to feed them? Howare we going to get the food to those populations? Who's going to pay for it? Those are all very largequestions.

Here are some further obstacles to producing enough food in the future. In addition to producingcrops that are used for human consumption, there is a growing market and interest in producingfeedstocks for a huge bioenergy market. The bioenergy markets consume a substantial amount of


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grain that could be used for food or animal feed. For example producing corn for ethanol production iscommon in many developed countries. This is inefficient and incredibly inappropriate given thepressing needs for food. Hopefully in the next few years some of this grain will be freed up as theresult of ethanol being produced from cellulose contained in plants and trees and grasses rather thanusing feed crops. As we go forward, were going to have to come up with food production strategiesthat contribute to worldwide economic development and poverty reduction.

Geopolitical strife occurs all the time in the world. This affects both food production and distribution.Were going to have to deal with a scarce resource base and shift to more sustainable productionmethods. Id just like for you to think about the following: we have a growing population, we need toproduce more food, AND we have climactic conditions that may not be ideal for food production (everhear of global warming?). So with all those constraints, the challenge of feeding the world is anincredibly large one. In addition, we have to feed people in a way that has minimal impact on climatechange.

I just summarized some of the factors that affect food production. I'd like to present them in a moresuccinct manner. We talked about climate. Obviously we need favorable climactic conditions. I don'tthink anybody wants to destroy more rain forest or wildlife habitats in order to grow more soy beans orcorn, so there is a reality that we cant put more farm ground into production. As for geo-political strife,that's ever present. In many poverty-stricken countries, a poor food distribution system is the rootcause that contributes to malnutrition. In the United States, the science infrastructure is under attackby some. For example, there is not sufficient funding to conduct discovery research (research thatdiscovers the next new idea that could be developed into a product or technology thats sold thatsome way increases food production capacity). We also have the ever-present reality that there canbe plant and animal disease outbreaks either intentional or unintentional. The foot and mouthdisease outbreak in England is a good example of a virus that had a huge impact. That was anunintended outbreak - that is we don't think anybody intentionally released the virus. But there areexamples of some terrorist groups developing technologies and using pathogens, both plant andanimal, as a strategy for impeding food production. Finally, it is important to consider consumerdemands and attitudes. Many consumers want to have a huge selection of food. However, theprocess of developing new agricultural technologies is a time consuming and burdensome task. Forexample, with animal biotechnology products, it takes about 10 to 15 years from product ortechnology discovery to mainstream application. This is important because if were going to adoptscience and biotechnology as a way to feed the world, we aren't going to be able to wait until the year2049 and throw the switch and have the solution by the next year. Especially since it takes 10 to 15years to develop and implement new technologies for production agriculture.

The role of science then is to develop new biotechnologies that increase food production efficiency.Another strategy that can be very helpful is to develop a strategy to reduce food wastage. You recallin an earlier slide, I said that food production is about 9 trillion pounds per year and it needs toincrease to 14 trillion pounds per year. Well that's about a 30 to 40% increase. So one strategy that'sbeen discussed is to find ways to reduce waste in the food system from farm to fork. Waste iscurrently estimated at about 30 to 40% of total food produced. However, reducing food waste is ahuge challenge. A lot of products perish before they get to the table. In addition, many people indeveloped countries eat a lot more calories and nutrients than they need. Witness the obesity andoverweight epidemic in the United States. I don't think that were going to come up with a law thatmandates people to eat fewer calories and thereby spare food for hungry people. However, food


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wastage is a huge challenge and, realistically, I don't know that were going to be able to reduce foodwastage very much.

Biotechnology helps farms be more productive and efficient in lots of ways. In the plant realm,biotechnology helps farmers use fewer chemicals on their crops to keep weeds and insects at bay. Ithelps make land use more efficient, - that is farmers produce more food per acre or hectare. We willdiscuss this more later, but biotechnology is very sustainable and helps preserve the resources. Forexample, some genetically enhanced crops have been developed that are much better at survivingand thriving during drought conditions than classically bred field crops.

Biotechnology has huge impacts on productive efficiency of animals as well. Theres a technologycalled bovine somatotropin that increases the quantity of milk produced by dairy cows by about 10 to15 pounds per day. And there are a lot of technologies that are being developed that will increase thepercentage of valuable nutrients found in corn, soybeans, and animal products. One example is aproduct that enhances the level of omega-3 fatty acids in animal products. Omega-3s are fatty acidsthat have demonstrated beneficial effects on human health.

There are a number of folks that have the perception that there are very few approved agriculturalbiotechnology products. Here's a list of some. As you can see that there are biotech varieties ofsquash, biotech rice, tomatoes, soybeans, alfalfa, potatoes. The numbers beneath the crop namesignify a separate biotechnology approved to help with production efficiency, flavor, diseaseresistance, pest resistance, or processing characteristics of those crops. The point is there aredozens and dozens of plant products that have been approved for use. On the animal side, youll notethat there are relatively few approvals. One that is of particular interests is Posilac, which isrecombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST). This is technology that was approved by use in the UnitedStates in 1993 and is administered to dairy cows every two weeks. This is a naturally occurringprotein hormone and it increases milk production by about 10 to 15 pounds. And its been widelyadopted in the United States.

Canola23-18-17, 23-198GT200GT73, RT73HCN10HCN92MS1, RF1=>PGS1MS1, RF2=>PGS2MS8xRF3OXY-235T45(HCN28)

Cotton1598519-51A281-24-236, 3006-210-2331807/31808BXNDAS-21?23-5xDAS-24236-5LLCotton25MON1445/16998, MON531/757/1-76MON88913

SoybeansA2704-12, A2704-21A5547-127G94-1, G94-19, G168GTS 40-3-2GU262W62, W98

Corn176676, 678, 680BL(DLL 25)BT11 (X4334CBR,x4734CBR)CBH-351

DairyChymogePosilac Recombinant BovineSomatotropin (rbST)ChyMax

Tomatoes1345-4351-N5345, 8338B,Da,FFLAVR SAVR


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DAS-06275-8DAS-59122-7DBT418GA21MON8100, MON802,MON809MON810, MON863,MON88017MS3, MS6NK603

T14, T25, TC507

RiceLLRICE06LLRICE62LLRICE601

Papaya55-1/63-1

PotatoesATBT04-6SPBT02-7BT6, BT10, BT12,RBMT15-101SEMT15-15RBMT22-082

SquashCZW-3ZW20

AlfalfaJ101, J163

Center for Environmental Risk Assessment [2]


Links:[1] http://blogs.das.psu.edu/tetherton/2011/06/27/how-much-food-will-the-world-need-in-2050/[2] http://www.cera-gmc.org/?action=gm_crop_database


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Further evidence that shows how widely adopted biotechnology has been in agriculture is shownin this chart from ISAAA [1]. (If you Google ISAAA, you can find lots of information about a varietyof biotech crops.) As you can see, the acreage planted to biotech crops has increaseddramatically since 1996. Its been growing at a rate that exceeds 10% per year. You can see thatindustrial, developed countries like the United States, Australia, and Western Europe haveadopted biotechnology to a large degree. But there are also a number of developing countriesthat have adopted the technology. Currently there are 23 countries in the world that haveapproved genetically enhanced or biotech crops for planting in their country. Thats justremarkable.

Im going to talk a bit about the consumer ecosystem. The underlying discussion pertains to thefollowing question: We can develop technologies and new biotechnologies that benefitagriculture but if they are not accepted by consumers, are they going to be successful? Well, theanswer to that is no. That is, for any product to be successful it has to be purchased and used byconsumers. With respect to plant and animal biotechnologies, there are some organizations thattry to scare consumers about the safety of food produced using biotechnology. For example, Imsure many of you have heard about GMOs, or Frankenfoods. This name is designed to scareconsumers by using media campaigns are based on misinformation. The fact that thesecampaigns gain any traction with consumers is simply a failure of the scientific community to


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communicate with consumers to educate them about the benefits and safety of biotechnologies.Consumer education can be very challenging as youll see in my subsequent discussion.

This photo is a collage of various book titles and images that leads one to think: Geez it appearsas if conventional animal agriculture is under siege. A few years ago a New York Times editorialWhich Cows do you Trust? pertained to a debate over the use of rBST in dairy cows. Therewas an article in the Wall Street Journal Udder Madness. You can see some other images here.FactoryFarming.com - Isnt that just lovely? It gives the image that there are these farms that arepolluting the universe and are being managed in a way where animal welfare is not at the top ofthe consideration list. The fact is that the vast, vast majority of farmers keep the welfare of theiranimals as the top priority. They go to great effort to produce animals in a very humane fashion. Ifyou were relying on animals to produce your livelihood, wouldnt you? Crop farmers go to greatextents to show that their production practices are sustainable. The last thing they want to do ishave a production practice that does not sustain their business or enterprise. So the wordsustainable is a very interesting word and has many definitions to many different people.Agriculture in the true sense has been sustainable in society. We've been doing it for tens ofthousands of years. If we couldn't, it wouldnt be sustainable.

One of the images is from Rutters Dairy, in southern Pennsylvania that touts Our cows producemilk naturally. Well what does that mean? I don't know of any cow that produce milk unnaturally,do you? And you see other images that are designed to scare people. Milk: The Deadly Poison.Theres another one: Hormone-free milk. Well there's no such thing as hormone-free milk. Infact, every food you eat from cucumbers to soybeans to animal products contain zillions ofdifferent molecules or chemicals including a lot of naturally occurring protein hormones andsteroid hormones. For example, soybean oil is loaded with a steroid hormone calledphytoestrogens. But these titles create the idea that there must be something that's a problem.Does the word Farmageddon convey something thats positive or negative? I think it's designed


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to create the impression that something is negative.

Signs and labels like these lead to further challenges in the market space relative to foodmarketing. When you go to the grocery store you can see an amazing array of labels: pasture-raised, cage-free, free range, hormone-free, grass-fed. The USDA organic label is quite popular.Chipotle, a fast food restaurant, runs a number of advertisements. One says Get Pork fromFarmers not Factories. Now what do you suppose thats intended to convey? Well myinterpretation is that they want you to think that there are factories that produce pigs by themillions, but are not really concerned about the welfare of the pigs. The message is that if you goto Chipotle you get pork from a real farmer not from these other factory farms. This is absolutenonsense!!

I'd like to talk about some smoke and mirrors marketing campaigns that go on in the food aisle atthe grocery store. This example pertains to the dairy case. In many instances you can go to thegrocery store and be confronted with 3 general choices. One is what I call conventionallyproduced milk - its not differentially labeled and has no claim on it. The second example isorganic milk, which is labeled as organically produced. The third product choice is rBST-free milk,which is milk from cows that have not been administered recombinant bovine somatotropin(rBST), a biotechnology-derived protein hormone. The interesting thing here is that all milkcontains bovine somatotropin. All cows naturally produce BST and, when you administer rBST toa cow, it does not increase milk levels of BST. In fact the best scientists in the world cantdifferentiate between milk from cows administered rBST and those that havent had it. So youcan see the rBST-free label creates some confusion. Is there any difference betweenconventional and rBST milk? Is conventionally produced milk better than BST-free or organicmilk? Some consumers view organic and rBST-free milk as better and safer. For sure both costa lot more. To answer these questions, theres a lot of scientific evidence to say that theres nodifference in nutrient content between organic and conventionally produced milk. Chemically, itsall the same stuff. Biologically, its all equally safe. Nutritionally, it all contains the same nutrients.So the perception that organic and rBST-free milk is better is simply driven by marketing, notfacts based on the scientific evidence base.

Just to give you an example about my previous comment about the health effects of organicfoods, there was paper published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2010. Theauthors reviewed 98,700 papers that dealt with some aspect of nutritional or health effects inorganic foods, and found 12 studies that were relevant or qualified. That is that they met thecriteria for being included in this analysis. This is a lot of data. And what they concluded is that,from an extensive systematic review of the currently available published literature, evidence islacking for nutritionally-related health effects that result from the consumption of organicallyproduced foodstuffs. So theres no health effect derived from consuming organic foods versusconventionally produced foods. This also has been evaluated from a standpoint of nutrientcontent or nutrient quality. This is another paper published in the American Journal of ClinicalNutrition. (The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition is the leading human clinical nutrition journalin the world.) This paper looked at the effects of organic food production on the nutrient contentor nutrient quality. The authors concluded that theres no evidence of any difference in nutrient


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quality between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs. Even so, a lot of people gobuy organic food because they think its healthier, better, safer. Thats not the case.

Now you might wonder Whats this all about? How can this be? Well there are a lot of thingsthat play out in the market space. This is very much a marketing campaign where words are justshot at each other where some say this technology and product is better than that one or thiswill kill you if you eat it or this ones better for you, its healthier. And based on some surveydata, at least some consumers believe the marketing and purchase the higher-priced product. Itsreally complicated and difficult to communicate science, and it has historically beencommunicated very poorly by the scientific community. Many folks have had a poor scientificexperience in a high school or college science class, so its a topic they choose to avoid. I dontthink any of you would be sitting at your dinner table tonight talking about quantum mechanicsand how that science would benefit society. The responsibility for clear communication restsclearly a scientific community where many scientists prefer to go do science and talk to scientistsrather than get in front of a TV camera and talk about something thats very technicallydemanding to discuss in a 30 second TV clip. So the confusing descriptions of science make iteasy to manipulate public opinion about science for anyone that has a political agenda. Andthere are a lot of groups out there that have political agendas. PETA is one, the Humane Societyof the United States is another. A number of these groups have the intent to scare the public byavoiding or manipulating the science and scientific application to agriculture. For example, onesafe way to eliminate the potential for E. coli contamination in meat products is to use irradiation.Irradiation is very, very effective in reducing the presence of bacteria or pathogens on foodproducts. However, the public has been made to believe that if you eat irradiated food, youreeating little nuclear bombs and youre going to get radiation poisoning. Thats absolutenonsense. But nonetheless, that reality is there.

In addition to avoiding confusing science, many consumers have a poor grasp of basic biologicalconcepts. There has been a lot of survey work to look at the scientific knowledge base ofdifferent populations. In the United States, for example, the National Science Foundationconducts a survey of scientific knowledge. In their last survey, they had a survey instrument thatcontained 20 true/false questions. One of those questions was the center of the earth is hot.Well a surprising number of college graduates missed that question - which I find remarkable.(By the way, the center of the earth IS hot!) Thats an illustration of how some folks really donthave a very good scientific background. Likewise, they have a very poor understanding of thefood system.

The following three points are compiled from a number of surveys that Ive read and analyzed.

Only about half of consumers have heard of traditional crossbreeding methods. The fact isthat everything thats a plant product in the grocery store, whether thats green beans, limabeans, or peas, is a result of hundreds of years of crossbreeding.

1.

Only 20% of respondents say that they have eaten a crossbred fruit or vegetable. This isremarkable because you cant find anything thats not a crossbred fruit or vegetable in thegrocery store.

2.

34% of consumers indicate that there are any foods produced by biotechnology andsupermarkets. The fact is that there are a vast, vast number of products available for salein the grocery store that are derived from biotechnology. For example, virtually all the

3.


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cheese thats produced is produced using recombinantly produced chymosin, an enzymethat promotes milk curdling and is important for the cheese-making process.

I would like to talk a little bit more about some survey data. Some in society have the impressionthat theres a great concern about animal biotechnology. These data are from a 2008 surveyconducted by the International Food Information Council, located in Washington DC.

The question that was presented was: How much have you read or heard about applying thescience of biotechnology to animals? Would you say youve heard.? And the respondentsfilled in the blank. Now its important to appreciate that this survey was done in an open-endedmanner, where there was not a list of answers to select from. You can conduct surveys to get to apre-determined outcome. Thats a topic thats too long to discuss in this class but the point is thatopen-ended questions are the best way to do a survey. You can see that in response about halfof the people (this is a population large enough to generalize to the U.S population) hadnt heardanything about animal biotechnology. Only 5% had heard a lot, and 27% had heard a little. Soroughly 70-80% of the population has heard nothing at all or very little about animalbiotechnology in the food system and the application of animal biotechnology to producing foodswe eat. So what we have is some groups that are very vocal that are heard by a very smallportion of the population, but most people arent paying much attention. In fact most people aremaking their food purchase decisions based on price and quality, not production practice.

Another question was posed: What, if anything, are you concerned about when it comes to foodsafety? As you can see in the chart below, food biotechnology is only a concern for 1% of therespondents. So essentially theres no concern about the use of food biotechnology when you gotalk to a cohort of consumers as reflective of the population in the United States. And you cansee their greatest concerns are disease contamination, this makes a lot of sense because of theoccasional food disease outbreak that gets covered by the media. And you see the list of otherthings that are food safety concerns.

2008 2007 Change

Disease/contamination 50% 38% +12%


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Handling/preparation 29% 31% -6%

Food sources 13% 20% -3%

Health/nutrition 8% 8% ---

Agricultural production 7% 8% -1%

Preservatives/Chemicals 6% 9% -3%

Packaging/labeling 3% 5% -2%

Biotech 1% 1% +1%

Processed foods 1% 1% ---

Other 2% 4% -2%


Links:[1] http://www.isaaa.org/


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Another question was: Thinking about your diet over the past few months, are any foods oringredients that youve avoided or eaten less of? And you can see in 2008, 56% of therespondents said yes, in 2007 it was about 61%, so yes they are. Its clear that Americans areavoiding certain foods. A follow-up question is What foods are they avoiding?

Well you can see that people are avoiding foods that are high in certain nutrients. For example:about half of the respondents are avoiding sugar or carbohydrates. About a third or 40% of thepopulation are avoiding foods that are high in fats, typically saturated fats and cholesterol. Theconcern there is that some fats, specifically saturated fatty acids, are associated with increasedrisk of chronic disease. You can see that some people are avoiding animal products, salts,sodium, and it goes on and on. In the two years the survey was compiled, no one was avoidingbiotech foods. They didnt even make the list. So I think this illustrates that while you might havethe impression that theres a big public uproar about the use of biotechnology in food production,consumers really arent concerned about it. Most of the uproar is generated by a small, but vocalgroup of activists with political agendas.

Id like to talk a little bit about What is sustainable agriculture? This is a very interesting phrasebecause the word sustainable has been hijacked. Some groups clearly think that their way ofdoing sustainable is better than another sustainable method. The impression is that if you have asmall family farm, youre doing sustainable agriculture thats better than a larger family farm. Wellthats not the case. I mean if farms cannot be economically sustainable (make money), then thatfarm owner cannot sustain the operation and they sell the farm and move on to do somethingelse. So the word sustainable has a very important component that isnt often recognized - thats


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economic sustainability. Regardless of size, a farm is a business its got to be run as a business.It also has to be sustainable in the context of environmental considerations. These all arecomponents of sustainable agriculture.

Id like to talk a little bit about sustainability from a standpoint of an example using the beefindustry and what has played out after the adoption of technologies. In 1977, U.S. producersmade 603 pounds of meat per beef animal slaughtered. In 2007 it was up to 773 pounds, andsome estimates are that by 2027 well be able to produce about 892 pounds of beef per carcass.So since 1977 weve really made dramatic strides in improving beef yield per animal and thatslargely been done through the application of science and technology.

Opportunities to further improve beef yield per animal may be limited

Id like to talk a little bit about sustainability from a standpoint of an example using the beefindustry and what has played out with the adoption of technologies. You can see in the box itsays 1977 we produced 603 pounds of beef per animal, that is per beef animal, and in 2013 it isup to 804 and some estimates are that by 2027 well be able to produce about 892 pounds ofbeef so since 1977 weve really made dramatic strides in improving beef yield per animal andthats largely done through the application of science and technology.


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Conventional Natural Grass-fed

Finishing diet Corn-based Corn-based Pastureonly

P-E Technology use 100% 0% 0%

Average startingwieght (lb) 42 42 42

Average slaughterweight (lb) 1,254 1,129 1,071

Carcass weight (lb) 800 714 615

Overall growth rate(lb/d) 3.84 3.15 1.30

Birth to slaughter (d) 453 464 679

Source: USDA-NASS (2009) http://www.nass.usda.gov/Data_and_Statistics/Quick_Stats/ [1] Last accessed, 9/15/09

To put this in another context, in 1977 it took 5 animals to produce the same amount of beef as 4animals in 2007. That reflects the fact that cattle being produced in 2007 grow much more rapidlyand produce much more lean meat. This reflects an improvement in economic efficiency as wellas environmental efficiency and sustainability. Id think youd agree that if you have 4 animals thatcan produce the same amount of meat as 5, those 4 animals will produce less manure, and lessmethane and CO2. So thats a huge impact and environmental benefit from a sustainabilitystandpoint.

Source: Capper , J. L. (2010). The Environmental Impact of Conventional, Natural and Grass-fed Beef Production Systems.Greenhouse Gases and Animal Agriculture Conference, Banff, Canada

Feedlot Beef Production + Technology Reduces Days on Feed and ResourceUse

Now to further thediscussion in context ofconventionally produced,naturally produced, andgrass-fed cattle. These aredifferent production systems.Grass-fed cattle are put outin pasture only. Naturalcattle are fed corn-baseddiet without the use of anytechnologies. Conventionallyproduced cattle are fed acorn corn-based diet withtechnologies used toenhance productiveefficiency. You can see inthe graph that the babycalves all start the same

weight. You can also see theres a big difference in average slaughter weight that corresponds toa dramatic difference in carcass weight. (Carcass weight is how much of the carcass is available


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after you remove the gastrointestinal tract). You can see theres an enormous difference ingrowth rate. The cattle in the conventional production system where technology is being used topromote growth gained 3.8 pounds each day. This reflects the fact that grass-fed cattle areeating an inadequate diet and are growing much slower. So consequently it took them much,much longer to go from birth to slaughter weight or slaughter age. So the conventionallyproduced cattle took 453 days from birth to slaughter and in the grass-fed group took 679 days.

As youll see in the next figure, this has a big impact on some environmental outcomes. So in thegrass-fed system it takes about 1.54 animals to produce the 800-pound carcass of oneconventionally produced animal. So grass-fed takes 1.54 animals to produce the same amount ofbeef as one conventionally fed animal. Thats remarkable.

*Animal refers to cows, calves, heifers, bulls, stockers and finishing animalsSource: Capper , J. L. (2010). The Environmental Impact of Conventional, Natural and Grass-fedBeef Production Systems. Greenhouse Gases and Animal Agriculture Conference, Banff,Canada

Carbon Foodprints

Carbon dioxide and methane gasses are released into the atmosphere when we feed cattle.Grass-fed cattle produce a lot more of these gasses during their lifespan and thats because theygrow slower and live longer. So they actually have a much bigger adverse impact relative to gasemissions into the atmosphere.


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Source: Capper , J. L. (2010). The Environmental Impact of Conventional, Natural and Grass-fed Beef Production Systems.Greenhouse Gases and Animal Agriculture Conference, Banff, Canada; EPA (2009) Light-Duty Automotive Technology, CarbonDioxide Emissions, and Fuel Economy Trends: 1975 Through 2009

The car icons represent the number of cars equivalent for each systems carbon footprint per800 lb carcass wt (EPA (2009) average CO2 emissions for cars and light trucks, 12,000miles/year traveled)

The carbon footprint of grass-fed beef is increased primarily because of the increased numberof animals required to produce a set amount of beef, plus the increased days on feed. For eachday than an animal is alive, they use resources (feed, fossil fuels) and emit greenhouse gases(methane, nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide). More animals and more days on feed meansincreased resource use and greenhouse gas emissions.

The difference between technology and natural systems is also due to the increased number ofanimals and slight increase in days on feed for the natural system. In combination, this meansmore feed, more greenhouse gases and a higher carbon footprint per carcass.

The carbon footprint includes:

methane from enteric fermentation;methane and nitrous oxide from manure;nitrous oxide from fertilizer application;carbon dioxide from animals, fertilizer/pesticide manufacture and fossil fuel combustion

As you might expect with slower growing cattle consuming an inadequate diet, you need morecattle to produce the same amount of food. This also has an impact on land use. Grass-fed beefcattle require 4 acres more per head - a huge inefficiency. If we were to produce all grass-fedcattle, not only would it produce more manure, methane and CO2, it would take a much largerland base.


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Source: Capper , J. L. (2010). The Environmental Impact of Conventional, Natural and Grass-fed Beef Production Systems.Greenhouse Gases and Animal Agriculture Conference, Banff, Canada

We mentioned at the beginning of this talk that the food system is relatively fragile. One of thehuge potential threats is bioterrorism in agriculture. It really is a strategic economic warfareapproach. Just think if somebody sprinkled E. coli in the salad bar of several grocery stores inyour hometown and it was determined that there was a disease outbreak in the grocery store orgrocery stores. Would you be inclined to go buy food there? So it would have an impact onwhere you shopped and would disrupt food supply and it would have an economic impact byreducing sales. It would sure as heck scare the public! For example if you had repetitiveoccurrences of some disease outbreak from food bought at your local grocery store, you wouldbe very fearful about buying food there. You as a consumer would be distressed, draw attentionto the cause and create lots of pressures on politicians about how are we going to fix theproblem. What are we going to do? This whole arena is something that is not discussed much. Itwould be relatively easy for some terrorist group to release a pathogen that attacks crops oranimals used for food production. In a way Im very surprised that this hasnt happened.


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Bioterrorists targeting some sectors of agriculture could benefit from realities in the U.S andmany other countries where food production is geographically restricted. This is an example ofthe dairy industry. You can see there are relatively few counties that produce milk. In fact, only 9counties produce 25% of all the milk in the United States. Those are located in the south centralvalley of California, there are a few counties in Arizona, and one county in Pennsylvania(Lancaster County) thats involved. In addition, only 48 counties produce half of the fluid milk. Ifthere was some pathogen that affected dairy cows and that pathogen was intentionally releasedin California and a few other counties, that would greatly, greatly impede milk production in theUnited States. How you prevent that is very difficult. How you monitor what might be impendingattacks is remarkably difficult and its really not talked about in the open source literature. This issomething that is a great concern to security enterprises in the United States but its not reallysomething that the public perceives or thinks much about.

This gets to the end of my presentation. Ive talked about what biotechnology is, the food system,the need for it, and what were going to do in the future and I close with this question aboutwhere do we go? Do we support using science as one important strategy for increasing foodproduction in the world? If we dont do that, how are we going to feed the growing worldpopulation? I dont know, but Id like you to consider this as you complete this course and look tothe future of food production over the next 45 years or so.


Links:[1] http://www.nass.usda.gov/Data_and_Statistics/Quick_Stats/


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For this disuccsion forum activity, you will post your answers by Friday at 11:55pm to thefollowing questions to Module 1: Introductions (Lessons Tab, Discussion Forums Folder,Module 1: Discussion Forum folder).

Introduce yourself1. Tell us where you are from2. Tell us why you enrolled in this course3. What is your major?4. Tell us about your experiences with

Farm animalsPets

5.

Rate your knowledge of animal agriculture on a scale of 1 (no knowledge) to 10 (substantialknowledge)

6.

Tell us one of your favorite animal-related memories.7.

For this discussion forum activity, you will make your first post to the forum by Friday at11:55pm to Module 1: Discussion Forum (Lessons tab, Discussion Forum folder).

In one of your Module 1 Forum Posts, define your expectations for this course afterreading the material discussed in Module 1?

You will then post at least two additional substantial and thoughtful questions in response to yourclassmates, based on their answers they have provided by Sunday at 11:55pm. Students arerequired to participate in class discussions. Higher levels of participation are certainlyencouraged and will create an improved class experience. Discussion forum posts must besubstantial and thoughtful.

After thorough review of this lesson, you will need to take the Module 1 Quiz (Lessons tab,Quizzes folder).


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THIS CONCLUDES THIS MODULE...


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Binder 1

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