Agriculture’s best days are ahead

Some people look with nostalgia at the “good ol’ days” thinking that the world would be a better place if we could just go back in time, give up on technology and return food and farming to the way it used to be. To these people I say, “poppycock!” These garbled views of the past are not only wrong-headed, they are dangerous.
The days before science delivered modern agricultural practices, such as advanced plant breeding and effective crop inputs, saw the rural Canadian landscape filled with poverty, hardship and reduced life expectancy. And this is not that long ago – a generation or two at best. No one who lived through these times would want to go back. People who live in these conditions today, in developing parts of the world, deserve the chance to get out.
Agriculture’s best days are not in the past, they are ahead and science and research create the path that will take us there. Science and research have already delivered. Never in the history of human development has food been as cheap and abundant as it is today in the developed world. Never in the history of human development has food been as safe to eat as it is today in the developed world. And I would argue that never in the history of human development has agriculture been as environmentally sustainable as it is today.
Modern agricultural practices like zero and conservation tillage mean that Saskatchewan does not blow into Ontario anymore like it did when my dad was growing up. Precision agriculture and modern crop inputs minimize greenhouse gas emissions and maximize the efficiency of crop nutrients. New varieties developed through modern plant breeding are delivering more and more food without having to cut down more trees.
The bottom line is that we have safe food abundantly produced in a sustainable manner; brought to you by science, research and modern agriculture. The forecast for the future is more of the same, only faster.
You might not see this message on the Internet much because agriculture has been particularly bad at communicating the benefits we deliver to society. Too often we assume everyone knows and just go about our business producing more food. But in an increasingly urban country with generations of separation between the city and the farm (if there ever was a connection) this assumption is dangerously wrong.