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Home > Corporate Responsibility > Sustainable Agriculture > White Paper > Ensuring the Social Well-Being of One Billion Farmers

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Ensuring the Social Well-Being of One Billion Farmers

“Who are the hungry?” asks Dr. Clive James, director of ISAAA⁹. “50 percent are resource-poor farmersⁱ. Another 20 percent are landless that are completely dependent on agriculture for their livelihood.” Even today, estimates of those who are engaged in agriculture globally range up to 1.3 billion, or nearly one-half of the actively employed global population. Global experts agree that increasing agricultural productivity is a practical imperative that must be at the center of strategies to reduce hunger and poverty in order to improve the social well-being of resource-poor farmers. “Take any place on the planet that was once extremely poor and is now either developed or on its way to being a developed economy and you will almost inevitably find an agricultural revolution at the start of that – a big rise in productivity, in the amount of food grown per hectare of land,” says Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University¹⁰.

In a few short years, another type of development has resulted from the surge in energy prices as investment capital around the world has seized on the opportunity to develop renewable transport fuels from plant biomass. Political support in the United States and Europe has consolidated behind proposals to reduce dependency on foreign sources of oil, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and invest in the manufacturing of renewable fuels produced in rural economies. Today, the United States imports $1.4 billion of foreign crude oil per day to meet demand and is expected to import up to 70 percent of its needs by 2030¹¹. The International Energy Agency projects global energy demand will increase by 55 percent by 2030, with 74 percent of this growth taking place in developing economies¹². As large, emerging economies such as China and India begin to compete for energy, industrialized nations and their political leaders search for new solutions.

Farmers who have seen their rural communities in decline look forward to a future of increasing investment and employment opportunities closer to the farm. In the United States, more than 238,000 jobs and nearly $3.4 billion in local tax revenues resulted from the ongoing production of ethanol or the construction of renewable fuel capacity in 2007 alone¹³. Consumers have benefited as well. Agricultural economists at the Center for Agriculture and Rural Development (CARD) recently estimated U.S. consumers are saving $0.29 to $0.40 per gallon due to the impact of ethanol availability on gasoline prices¹⁴.

After being dormant for years, the price of food has again become an important issue. In recent testimony before Congress, U.S. Department of Agriculture Chief Economist Joseph Glauber pointed to (1) global economic growth leading to increased demand for higher protein, diversified diets in developing countries, (2) poor weather in several important grain producing countries, including a multi-year drought in Australia, (3) restrictive export policies among several important grain exporting countries (4) significantly higher energy prices across the agriculture and food chain, and (5) emergence of demand for renewable fuels as contributing to the current situation of higher food prices¹⁵. While the prices farmers receive for commodities have risen, they are sharing their concern about the prices of farm inputs. Energy-dependent inputs such as plant fertilizers have increased in price by 228% since 2000¹⁶. Livestock producers, while also enjoying the burgeoning demand for meat, milk and eggs are significantly impacted by higher grain and energy prices.

Farmers around the world want to meet the needs of the livestock industry with cost competitive sources of protein, oil and fiber. They want to feed their children and create ample supplies for developing countries who desire to diversify their diets. They also want to be a solution to those who look toward renewable fuels for a more secure energy supply.

Who will help them?