{"id":12964,"date":"2020-10-06T09:54:53","date_gmt":"2020-10-06T15:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/futurefarmer1.wpengine.com\/?p=12964"},"modified":"2020-11-10T12:58:34","modified_gmt":"2020-11-10T18:58:34","slug":"losing-ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/futurefarmermag.com\/losing-ground\/","title":{"rendered":"Losing Ground"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Joe Heilman, Intelligent Ag<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The modern grower is facing more challenges today than the previous generation could even imagine. Smart weeds, advanced seed genetics, social pressure, increasing regulation, advancing equipment, usage restrictions, etc. On top of all that, everyone tells us to produce more food, more affordably, but use fewer chemicals, fertilizer, water and land. What the heck!? How did we get here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One-hundred-fifty years ago, it is estimated that the majority of the U.S. workforce (about 60 percent, according to the Visual Capitalist) was involved in the agriculture industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think of that for a minute. It was more common to work on or around a farm or ranch than anything else. Today, it is the exact opposite. The estimates today are that less than three percent of the workforce is involved in agriculture. In less than two generations, North America has, by and large, moved off the farm to do something else. This has been made possible by enormous improvements in mechanization and the general use of technology leading to an explosion of productivity gains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, over the same 150 years, the world population has gone from around 1.3 billion people to now almost 8 billion people. Those people want to eat! One would think they would be highly supportive of the ag industry since we\u2019re the ones feeding them. Unfortunately, it seems like people have only gotten more critical of how their food is produced. It\u2019s true, but in my opinion, it\u2019s not their fault. It\u2019s an unfortunate evolution of modernization and productivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the populace has moved off the farm and into the cities, the connection to the farm has been lost and thus people have become clueless about how food is produced. It reminds me of this quote from an unknown source, \u201cWhat we don\u2019t understand, we fear. What we fear, we judge as evil. What we judge as evil, we attempt to control. And what we cannot control \u2026 we attack.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With only three percent of the workforce involved in agriculture, the opportunity for someone to have even a remote connection to a farm is very small. So, it\u2019s no wonder there seem to be more attacks on the industry or attempts to control it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are demands for more food traceability, strict record- keeping and usage restrictions on critical inputs like fertilizer, herbicides\/pesticides\/fungicides, water, land … the list goes on and on. How can we keep up? Well, to be honest, we probably can\u2019t stop the trend. But, we CAN adapt and hopefully slow down some of those changes and protect our way of life a bit better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, how do growers and others in the ag industry PROVE to society that we\u2019re doing a good job and producing a good product? There are a couple of things that come to my mind:<\/p>\n\n\n\n