hello everybody my name is Dennis Dimick
I’m the executive environment editor at
National Geographic magazine I’m an
Oregon farm kid who studied agriculture
in college and it is an incredibly
wonderful experience to be able to stand
before you today to see food and
agriculture on the cover of National
Geographic magazine we’ve been working
on this project for several years and I
want to thank editor Chris John’s for
his support just so we know he too is an
Oregon farm boy who studied agriculture
in college so the question really is why
food now and what my purpose is today
really is to go through that but also to
give you a quick rundown of what we’re
about and to understand why food now we
also need to take a look at some of the
larger global issues that the world
faces in that national geographic itself
has been covering climate change ten
years ago 74 pages in in one issue
disappearing ice the global energy
cannon Durham special issue we’ve
covered energy heavily biofuels how do
you grow fuel without compromising the
food system energy the here fracking
just last year it climate energy water
population food they’re all linked we we
published a special issue on the global
freshwater situation in 2010 and in 2011
we published a year-long series on
population its potential and the
implications of 9 billion people at
mid-century but we’ve also been covering
agriculture in 2008 we put a story on
soil conservation on the cover of the
magazine it took nine years from the
time I wrote the first proposal just
like soil it takes good things take a
while to build right but what we one
thing to come out of this is to
understand clearly that the soil that
you inherit the soil in your country is
so profoundly significant in the success
of your
civilization as you look here the woman
in Mali with her family or the woman in
China guess who has the life with more
productivity or here the deep soil in
Kansas versus the shallow rocky soil in
Syria it’s almost right here a visual
indicator of headlines that we read but
it’s a changing world that we’re in and
we covered this kind of dimension as it
relates to food in our population Series
in 2011 here Carrie Fowler of the global
crop diversity trust in Svalbard what
behind him is a seed bank that is that
it’s positioned high enough on the side
of a mountain so that when all the ice
on the planet melts the Seas in the
seeds in that vault will still stay dry
so that we can continue to grow the
crops that we all need for civilization
to continue and thrive we covered this
emerging food crisis in June of 2009
Joel Bourne is here today who wrote the
story for us this was during the food
price spike after the food price spike
of 2008 and it was a harbinger for the
kinds of issues that we’re trying to
expand on today and the underpinning
issues are going like this well we have
more people and just over a hundred
years ago there were 1.6 billion of us
in a hundred years later we go from one
six to six point one move forward
another 13 we’re 7.1 and this is the
latest projection from the UN that’s a
lot more mouths to feed but we’re also
eating but we’re also eating higher on
the food chain so we’re using our
landscapes to grow crops to feed animals
and cars and to make sugar and we’re and
we’re shipping this is soy to an
international market we’re feeding a
rising demand for animal protein people
want to live like us and so they’re
wanting to eat like us and that has
profound implications for landscapes for
for soil for water for
energy but also this this is the big
unknown and all we know is that it is in
play and let’s just take a look at the
Arctic ice cap in slightly more than 30
years this is September of 79 the first
year that the satellites took a picture
of the ice cap and slightly more than 30
years half of it’s gone this is the most
dramatic visible geological shift that
we’ve seen in human history it has
profound potential to have an impact on
the potential of agriculture and the way
we live and the studies now
scientifically are focused on what
impact changes in the Arctic on mid
latitude weather and here looking
forward this study by Roz Naylor and
David Battisti that was in science in
2009 looking forward trying to figure
out as long as we keep burning coal oil
and gas at the rate we do what our
summer is going to look like and the red
is hotter than it’s ever been and this
is only a few decades ahead but then by
the end of the century lots of places
are going to be hotter than they’ve ever
been that it that’s a big question mark
for agriculture especially rain-fed
farming that relies upon adequate
supplies of precipitation coming at the
times we expect so that’s why food now
but beyond that what we’re trying to do
is to start a conversation we have up to
40 million readers worldwide we have a
global community of editions and what
we’re trying to do is to reconnect
eaters and farmers and just to try to
get this idea of where food comes from
what it takes to make it happen and how
it happens with people so that they’re
not just thinking about it when they
occasionally read an article every five
years about say reauthorization of the
farm bill and so I’ll walk you through
quickly what we have our opening story
written by Jonathan Foley who I will
introduce to you in a moment this
question of how can we go about finding
a balance between big and small
where is the middle ground what can we
do and we and we illuminate this through
the magnitude and the scale of the
operation the intensity and the profound
transformation that agriculture
essentially one of the world’s largest
activity has done to our planet but on
the other hand come to meet the people
who grow our food it is on one hand
intense and intensely huge on the other
hand it’s farming and food is personal
and so we want you to meet the people
who devote their lives to growing the
food that we all depend upon every day
it’s a personal activity next month we
will take a look at aquaculture the role
of farming of the sea and of the waters
we’ve formed the continents for
thousands of years what potential for
protein from the sea and from our inland
waters here for example this is a chart
that shows feed conversion ratios for
you AG majors it’s really an important
kind of thing how many pounds of protein
do you get for how many pounds of feed
and what you see over on the far right
is fish are pretty good 1.1 1.1 not bad
a pound in a tenth of feed for a pound
of protein Robyn Hammond is here he will
give you great detail on this story
soon I will just lightly touch on it
it’s the role of this emergent impact of
colonization of lands and other
continents it’s shorthand has been
called land grabs what we’re looking at
is what is the potential for the
continent of Africa to feed itself and
to become a contributor to the global
food supply and Robin will go into
greater detail with you
transformation from a medieval landscape
to this kind of agricultural landscape
so we can’t just turn the lens on the
rest of the world we must turn the lens
on ourselves too and here in the United
States the question is why are there
more than 45 million people on food
assistance why is this
happening in rural America in urban
America and in suburban America we know
the issues are complex and the answers
are not easy but we need to at least
raise this so people can think about how
we can create a better future for our
own brethren here a map showing out
where hunger as a percentage of the
population is higher than in other
counties as we move ahead through the
rest of the year the presentation
becomes a bit more skeletal but you’ll
get the idea that we’re going to talk
about how diets have moved from from
from ancient hunter-gatherer to herder
and the idea that cooking is what really
made us human it’s actually transformed
us it gave us big brains and smaller
bellies and it created an amazing array
of foods and diets that we have all come
used to and taken for granted and the
role of meat is a big question when we
talk about resources this is these
pictures are from Texas where we’re
taking a look at the culture of meat in
Texas but this the story that we write
is going to try to confront all of the
implications and the complexities of the
reliance on animal protein and what that
means not only for our own health but
for the health of the planet climate is
so essential here because it’s the
question of what role drought in
agriculture and so what we will you do
in this story is actually take a look at
lessons we can learn from prior drought
to inform future decisions especially as
it relates to agriculture and crops how
can what can we learn from the past and
we’re going to focus on genetics and the
in the process of building better plants
what role can that play we’re now
breeding by genotype no longer by
phenotype this is the genome of a
sunflower seed and now we can take
ancient breeds of wheat and cross them
back using genotype breeding with modern
varieties to build in new qualities of
resilience
drought resistance and productivity here
at Irian the Philippines this is is
drought tolerant rice and this is a new
emergent see for rice it’s called where
the study is trying to take the
photosynthesis gene from corn and
transplanted into rice to improve
drought tolerance water efficiency in
productivity and the last will be a
piece on sustenance sacred sustenance
food is the center of our civilization
we gather around the table every day it
is the it is like the hearth of human
civilization the story of food is more
than just productivity and technology
and science and policy it’s also about
culture and it’s the thing that keeps us
as civilizations but a meal is not with
is nothing without its condiments and so
we are going to also serve up smaller
things like the diversity of apples and
the history of forks and food miles
right where does all this food come from
and how far does it travel but then we
also have meals ready to eat and what
are those like now now that’s an
evolution of diet is it and this is all
as gary has pointed out is is all coming
together on our website at at geo food
calm constantly updated with a news
reports of bloggers one example here is
a Jim Richardson who photographed the
portraits and the May issue that you
have has written two blog posts about
what it was like to go out into the
field and and meet the farmers with the
help of the scientists from the CGIAR we
have food bloggers here Jose Andre who
is here today is highlighted up there
and as gary said across the society we
have a
idea of initiatives channel exhibit
books geography Awareness Week and this
weekend we have a food hackathon and you
can find all of this at net geo food.com
hashtag the future of food
I’m the executive environment editor at
National Geographic magazine I’m an
Oregon farm kid who studied agriculture
in college and it is an incredibly
wonderful experience to be able to stand
before you today to see food and
agriculture on the cover of National
Geographic magazine we’ve been working
on this project for several years and I
want to thank editor Chris John’s for
his support just so we know he too is an
Oregon farm boy who studied agriculture
in college so the question really is why
food now and what my purpose is today
really is to go through that but also to
give you a quick rundown of what we’re
about and to understand why food now we
also need to take a look at some of the
larger global issues that the world
faces in that national geographic itself
has been covering climate change ten
years ago 74 pages in in one issue
disappearing ice the global energy
cannon Durham special issue we’ve
covered energy heavily biofuels how do
you grow fuel without compromising the
food system energy the here fracking
just last year it climate energy water
population food they’re all linked we we
published a special issue on the global
freshwater situation in 2010 and in 2011
we published a year-long series on
population its potential and the
implications of 9 billion people at
mid-century but we’ve also been covering
agriculture in 2008 we put a story on
soil conservation on the cover of the
magazine it took nine years from the
time I wrote the first proposal just
like soil it takes good things take a
while to build right but what we one
thing to come out of this is to
understand clearly that the soil that
you inherit the soil in your country is
so profoundly significant in the success
of your
civilization as you look here the woman
in Mali with her family or the woman in
China guess who has the life with more
productivity or here the deep soil in
Kansas versus the shallow rocky soil in
Syria it’s almost right here a visual
indicator of headlines that we read but
it’s a changing world that we’re in and
we covered this kind of dimension as it
relates to food in our population Series
in 2011 here Carrie Fowler of the global
crop diversity trust in Svalbard what
behind him is a seed bank that is that
it’s positioned high enough on the side
of a mountain so that when all the ice
on the planet melts the Seas in the
seeds in that vault will still stay dry
so that we can continue to grow the
crops that we all need for civilization
to continue and thrive we covered this
emerging food crisis in June of 2009
Joel Bourne is here today who wrote the
story for us this was during the food
price spike after the food price spike
of 2008 and it was a harbinger for the
kinds of issues that we’re trying to
expand on today and the underpinning
issues are going like this well we have
more people and just over a hundred
years ago there were 1.6 billion of us
in a hundred years later we go from one
six to six point one move forward
another 13 we’re 7.1 and this is the
latest projection from the UN that’s a
lot more mouths to feed but we’re also
eating but we’re also eating higher on
the food chain so we’re using our
landscapes to grow crops to feed animals
and cars and to make sugar and we’re and
we’re shipping this is soy to an
international market we’re feeding a
rising demand for animal protein people
want to live like us and so they’re
wanting to eat like us and that has
profound implications for landscapes for
for soil for water for
energy but also this this is the big
unknown and all we know is that it is in
play and let’s just take a look at the
Arctic ice cap in slightly more than 30
years this is September of 79 the first
year that the satellites took a picture
of the ice cap and slightly more than 30
years half of it’s gone this is the most
dramatic visible geological shift that
we’ve seen in human history it has
profound potential to have an impact on
the potential of agriculture and the way
we live and the studies now
scientifically are focused on what
impact changes in the Arctic on mid
latitude weather and here looking
forward this study by Roz Naylor and
David Battisti that was in science in
2009 looking forward trying to figure
out as long as we keep burning coal oil
and gas at the rate we do what our
summer is going to look like and the red
is hotter than it’s ever been and this
is only a few decades ahead but then by
the end of the century lots of places
are going to be hotter than they’ve ever
been that it that’s a big question mark
for agriculture especially rain-fed
farming that relies upon adequate
supplies of precipitation coming at the
times we expect so that’s why food now
but beyond that what we’re trying to do
is to start a conversation we have up to
40 million readers worldwide we have a
global community of editions and what
we’re trying to do is to reconnect
eaters and farmers and just to try to
get this idea of where food comes from
what it takes to make it happen and how
it happens with people so that they’re
not just thinking about it when they
occasionally read an article every five
years about say reauthorization of the
farm bill and so I’ll walk you through
quickly what we have our opening story
written by Jonathan Foley who I will
introduce to you in a moment this
question of how can we go about finding
a balance between big and small
where is the middle ground what can we
do and we and we illuminate this through
the magnitude and the scale of the
operation the intensity and the profound
transformation that agriculture
essentially one of the world’s largest
activity has done to our planet but on
the other hand come to meet the people
who grow our food it is on one hand
intense and intensely huge on the other
hand it’s farming and food is personal
and so we want you to meet the people
who devote their lives to growing the
food that we all depend upon every day
it’s a personal activity next month we
will take a look at aquaculture the role
of farming of the sea and of the waters
we’ve formed the continents for
thousands of years what potential for
protein from the sea and from our inland
waters here for example this is a chart
that shows feed conversion ratios for
you AG majors it’s really an important
kind of thing how many pounds of protein
do you get for how many pounds of feed
and what you see over on the far right
is fish are pretty good 1.1 1.1 not bad
a pound in a tenth of feed for a pound
of protein Robyn Hammond is here he will
give you great detail on this story
soon I will just lightly touch on it
it’s the role of this emergent impact of
colonization of lands and other
continents it’s shorthand has been
called land grabs what we’re looking at
is what is the potential for the
continent of Africa to feed itself and
to become a contributor to the global
food supply and Robin will go into
greater detail with you
transformation from a medieval landscape
to this kind of agricultural landscape
so we can’t just turn the lens on the
rest of the world we must turn the lens
on ourselves too and here in the United
States the question is why are there
more than 45 million people on food
assistance why is this
happening in rural America in urban
America and in suburban America we know
the issues are complex and the answers
are not easy but we need to at least
raise this so people can think about how
we can create a better future for our
own brethren here a map showing out
where hunger as a percentage of the
population is higher than in other
counties as we move ahead through the
rest of the year the presentation
becomes a bit more skeletal but you’ll
get the idea that we’re going to talk
about how diets have moved from from
from ancient hunter-gatherer to herder
and the idea that cooking is what really
made us human it’s actually transformed
us it gave us big brains and smaller
bellies and it created an amazing array
of foods and diets that we have all come
used to and taken for granted and the
role of meat is a big question when we
talk about resources this is these
pictures are from Texas where we’re
taking a look at the culture of meat in
Texas but this the story that we write
is going to try to confront all of the
implications and the complexities of the
reliance on animal protein and what that
means not only for our own health but
for the health of the planet climate is
so essential here because it’s the
question of what role drought in
agriculture and so what we will you do
in this story is actually take a look at
lessons we can learn from prior drought
to inform future decisions especially as
it relates to agriculture and crops how
can what can we learn from the past and
we’re going to focus on genetics and the
in the process of building better plants
what role can that play we’re now
breeding by genotype no longer by
phenotype this is the genome of a
sunflower seed and now we can take
ancient breeds of wheat and cross them
back using genotype breeding with modern
varieties to build in new qualities of
resilience
drought resistance and productivity here
at Irian the Philippines this is is
drought tolerant rice and this is a new
emergent see for rice it’s called where
the study is trying to take the
photosynthesis gene from corn and
transplanted into rice to improve
drought tolerance water efficiency in
productivity and the last will be a
piece on sustenance sacred sustenance
food is the center of our civilization
we gather around the table every day it
is the it is like the hearth of human
civilization the story of food is more
than just productivity and technology
and science and policy it’s also about
culture and it’s the thing that keeps us
as civilizations but a meal is not with
is nothing without its condiments and so
we are going to also serve up smaller
things like the diversity of apples and
the history of forks and food miles
right where does all this food come from
and how far does it travel but then we
also have meals ready to eat and what
are those like now now that’s an
evolution of diet is it and this is all
as gary has pointed out is is all coming
together on our website at at geo food
calm constantly updated with a news
reports of bloggers one example here is
a Jim Richardson who photographed the
portraits and the May issue that you
have has written two blog posts about
what it was like to go out into the
field and and meet the farmers with the
help of the scientists from the CGIAR we
have food bloggers here Jose Andre who
is here today is highlighted up there
and as gary said across the society we
have a
idea of initiatives channel exhibit
books geography Awareness Week and this
weekend we have a food hackathon and you
can find all of this at net geo food.com
hashtag the future of food
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