Former Senator George McGovern and Marshall Matz who both serve on the Board of the World Food Program wrote opinions in a Chicago Tribune story on January 4, 2009. To confirm their concern about feeding a hungry world, we will reference the following quotes:

“Norman Borlaug, a Nobel Laureate and father of the Green Revolution, has concluded that the world will have to produce more food in the next 50 years than it has in the last 10,000”.

“There is an important role for organic agriculture and, indeed, some consumers are willing to pay a premium for foods that are certified as organic. Commercial agriculture is still the backbone of the economy in most rural counties across the nation. We do not yet see the yields with organic agriculture that would feed a hungry planet of almost 7 billion people”.

“America’s farmers have become so efficient that 1% of the population can feed the entire country and much of the world. One of the downsides of this efficiency is that consumers have forgotten where our food comes from and what it takes to get our bounty into supermarkets”.

“We need to get beyond ideology and depend more on science. We need to develop a new understanding of agriculture based on our larger goals if we are to craft a long-term food and farm policy that works. Agriculture has a responsibility to adjust and contribute to improving the environment. But let’s stick to science and avoid an ideological debate about agricultural practices”.

We agree with McGovern and Matz. We must recognize that “organic” or free-range production is not sustainable and cannot replace the farming practice, which currently produces the abundance of affordable, safe food to feed the world’s population that Dr. Borlaug envisions.

It is reported that there are nearly 1 billion hungry people around the globe. The U.N. projects the world’s population will reach 9+ billion by mid-century and has called for a 100 percent increase in world food production by 2050.

If the anti-animal agriculture agendas of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and PETA are not stopped then we will see agriculture return to production practices that cannot feed the current population and certainly not the population Dr. Borlaug and the U.N. has estimated.