Excerpt
Over the past decade, I have been supporting and collaborating with visionary farmers, ranchers, and foresters in the 25x'25 Alliance and Solutions from the Land Dialogue. Together, we have been on a mission to “redefine” the core function of agriculture. Long known and respected for the role the sector plays in producing food, feed and fiber, we have been working, both domestically and globally, to ensure that producers are recognized, valued, and compensated for the full range of goods and services they deliver from the land.
While providing the basic staples of life, growers also produce clean energy, water, and air; maintain and enhance biodiversity; create high value ecosystem services; and sequester carbon (C) and other greenhouse gases that exacerbate global warming. In short, the agriculture and forestry sectors and their aligned value chain partners deliver multiple “solutions from the land.”
In the lower C future that is emerging, however, farmers will encounter a myriad of opportunities and challenges that will compromise their ability to provide land-based solutions that will benefit both producers and the environment. Feeding and fueling a world population that will reach over nine billion by the year 2050 will most certainly create new and valuable markets…
- © 2014 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society