Is "Feed the world" and the growing population nothing more than irrelevant marketing slang?
By Craig Ganssle
I'm guilty of utilizing marketing tactics to gain traction in the marketplace without knowing the details and how true the statements really are. Early on, I was so new to agriculture, I based comments off of what I heard other "experts" saying. Turns out, they're just in it for the marketing too.
For the longest time, many large corporations and medium-sized companies, make the comment that we need to "Produce more food in the next 30 years, or by 2050, than we have in the last... several thousand...", or whatever end number they use - (it seems to change). And, it's not just the big companies, every small ag tech start-up spews the same marketing.
The fact is... this is not true.
In this video of Dr. Lowell Catlett, he explains, in great detail and numbers, why it's not true. Furthermore, after listening to this video some time ago, I began asking farmers their thoughts on this overused and often abused statement... I can't find one who agrees with it.
One grower I am particularly close with in Illinois told me, "I get up every day to make money just like everyone else. If I happen to feed the world while doing so, great, but first and foremost I work to make money.". I found most farmers to have similar feelings.
According to this United Nations data, world population growth is actually going to begin to slow down. Younger generations are waiting longer to have children, if at all. The year 2100 is a long way off, but some believe population growth will actually stop.
So what is the real problem? Why are people starving if there's enough food to feed the world?
Actually, there's many reasons. We, as a world, would probably disagree on several of them. But politics, governments, distribution, supply chain, growing conditions, power, money, and greed seem to all make the list if you ask people.
So why do people keep telling this story and making this claim?
Because... it sounds good. We wall want a feel-good story and this one sounds great. Companies need catchy marketing that makes it sound like what they're wanting to do is going to save the world. It's to make you accept, whatever it is they want you to accept, for the sake of the greater good.
But here's a novel concept... waste.
One quick way to produce more is to waste less. Why are we not focused more on waste? I'm not saying no one is, because some certainly are, but why isn't everyone? It's like Apple Computer. The technology exists to make a phone with incredible battery technology, and a 120Mp camera, with blah, blah, blah... so why don't we just skip to the front of the line and do it? Because, there needs to be a money generating machine in place. Iterations of hardware make more money, even though they make more waste.
In 2015 I was working with Land O' Lakes to put wi-fi on farms. We were kicked off more farms by the owners than we were welcomed because while dairy farmers were being penalized for over-producing and they were having to dump milk, Land O' Lakes was bringing this solution to them, but asking the farmer to pay for it. Today, Land O' Lakes is suddenly the expert in rural broadband, and desires to work with Microsoft to bring connectivity to farms because we need better technology because we need to fee the world by 2030 with more than.... and off we go with the feel-good marketing. By the way... if you check the date in that linked Microsoft and Land O' Lakes announcement, it was almost two years ago.
What progress has been made? None.
Oh I'm sure if you ask either of them all kinds of progress has been made... because they've had MEETINGS!
I spent a year on the FCC Rural Broadband Task Force, Precision Agriculture Team... I'm here to tell you neither of them were present. And if you ask dairy farmers, they know little about it.
If we want to make progress, we need to stop lying to ourselves. The marketing tactics and misinformation gains zero traction and does little more than spread false promises. Few people buy into the bullshit anymore and if you want to create value, execute and get something done that actually produces value.
As soon as a presentation kicks off with this feeding the world in the next 50 years propaganda, you just lost credibility. You're not addressing the real problems. Up next... carbon. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Craig Ganssle is founder and CEO of Basecamp Networks, a technology firm headquartered in Alpharetta, Ga.
