March 14, 2011….Ames, Iowa. With global challenges mounting, it is a crucial time to examine the role research plays in our economic, social, and political well-being. In this new CAST Commentary, Investing in a Better Future through Public Agricultural Research, a team of respected scholars provides objective, science-based insights into the state of U.S. investments in public agricultural research.
Numerous factors are converging to create “the perfect storm” for global food and agriculture, conclude the authors of CAST’s newest Issue Paper, Agricultural Productivity Strategies for the Future: Addressing U.S. and Global Challenges. Prepared as an update of CAST’s first publication written in 1973 by Dr. Norman E. Borlaug (Agricultural Science and the Public, CAST Paper No. 1), the newly released paper is dedicated to Dr. Borlaug and features a Preface written by him shortly before his death in September 2009. Dr. Borlaug, credited with saving more lives than any other person who has ever lived through his development of high-yielding grains, was a lifelong promoter and advocate for CAST.
The new CAST paper is a forthright appraisal of the unprecedented challenges facing twenty-first century agriculture, including
Dr. Gale Buchanan, former USDA Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics and former CAST President, chairs the task force of notable scientists, researchers, and government leaders who drew from an extensive pool of literature as well as from their own broad experience and insight in preparing the new document.
“We need to end the three-decade-long pattern of living beyond our means; importing more than we export, borrowing more than we lend, spending more than we earn, and consuming more than we produce,” says Dr. Buchanan. “We are most concerned about the apparent lack of commitment by the United States and other countries to make the research and education expenditures needed to address the problems affecting our survival on this planet. Complacency is unwarranted at this time of unprecedented challenges.”
Dr. John Bonner, CAST Executive Vice President/CEO, concludes: “CAST is pleased to contribute this excellent, frank assessment of where we are and where we need to be to establish and sustain the health and abundance of world agriculture. We also are honored that the paper includes Dr. Borlaug’s last known published work, in which he summarizes both today’s challenges and CAST’s mission: ‘You have to be able to communicate. Research information must be applied in order to meet human needs.’ ”
The full text of Agricultural Productivity Strategies for the Future: Addressing U.S. and Global Challenges (Issue Paper 45, 16 pp.) may be accessed free of charge on the CAST website at www.cast-science.org, along with many of CAST’s other scientific publications. The paper also is available in hard copy for a shipping/handling fee. CAST is an international consortium of 30 scientific and professional societies. It assembles, interprets, and communicates credible science-based information regionally, nationally, and internationally to legislators, regulators, policymakers, the media, the private sector, and the public.
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Contacts:
Dr. Gale Buchanan—Phone: 229-386-7274; E-mail: galeb@uga.edu
Dr. John M. Bonner—Phone: 515-292-2125, ext. 25; E-mail: jbonner@cast-science.org
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