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Sustainability

This is part of a series of general presentations that will be regularly updated by NCGA through 2012. Feel free to reuse this as needed, in your own PowerPoint template if you wish, with the notes attached on each slide.

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Sustainability

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  1. This is part of a series of general presentations that will be regularly updated by NCGA through 2012. Feel free to reuse this as needed, in your own PowerPoint template if you wish, with the notes attached on each slide. Please forward any recommendations for additions or changes to this presentation, or other topic areas, to the NCGA Communications Office.

  2. Sustainability Corn Farming and Stewardship

  3. What’s Sustainability? Meeting the needs of the present while improving the ability of future generations to meet their own needs

  4. What’s Sustainability? • Decreasing soil erosion and use of pesticides, fertilizers, irrigation and fuel • Yields continue to increase

  5. Crop Protection • Each acre of U.S. cropland contains 50 to 300 million buried weed seeds • Crop plants must compete with 30,000 species of weeds, 3,000 species of nematodes and 10,000 species of plant-eating insects

  6. Crop Protection • Despite the use of modern crop protection products, up to 40% of potential food production is still lost every year to pests • Crop protection products increase crop productivity by 20% to 50%, thereby making it possible for consumers to choose from an abundant supply of fresh, high-quality foods

  7. Crop Protection • Agricultural output must doublein the next 20-30 years in order to feed the world’s population. Farmers must have access to crop protection solutions to grow more food per acre • Although the world population has doubled in the last 40 years, the area of land devoted to food production has remained virtually constant; crop protection products have enabled farmers to produce higher yields of their crops on less land

  8. Pesticide Use Trends Increasing adoption of hybrids with insect-resistant and herbicide-tolerant traits have greatly reduced the need for synthetic applications of herbicides and insecticides. Insecticide Pounds Per Acre Herbicide Pounds Per Acre Source: USDA

  9. Nutrient Use • Farmers use fertilizers to meet plant nutrient requirements and to replace the nutrients that have been absorbed by plants. • By fertilizing their land, farmers are simply replenishing the nutrients removed to produce food and maintain the health of their soil.

  10. Nutrient Use Efficiency This represents an 87.5 percent increase in production with 4 percent fewer nutrients. Source: USDA, Fertilizer Institute

  11. Field to Market • Field to Market: The Keystone Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture is a collaborative stakeholder group involving producers, agribusinesses, food and retail companies, and conservation organizations striving to develop a supply chain system for agricultural sustainability. • Objectives: • Identify criteria for sustainable agriculture that are open to the full range of agricultural technology choices; • Support the implementation of production systems that lead to broad performance improvements against these criteria.

  12. First Report • Released in 2009 • Looked at environmental resource indicators in five areas: • water use and quality • land use and biodiversity • soil loss • energy use • climate impact

  13. Corn’s Impacts, 1987-2007

  14. Corn’s Impacts, 1987-2007

  15. www.FieldtoMarket.org • The Fieldprint Calculator is an educational tool designed to help farmers assess how some of their farm decisions affect overall sustainability.

  16. Field to Market Members • American Farm Bureau Federation • American Farmland Trust • American Soybean Association • BASF • Bayer CropScience • Bunge • Cargill • Conservation International • Conservation Technology Information Center • Cotton Incorporated • CropLife America • CropLife International • Darden Restaurants, Inc. • DuPont • Environmental Defense Fund • Fleishman Hillard • General Mills • Grocery Manufacturers of America • Indiana Corn Growers Association • Indiana Soybean Alliance • Innovation Center for US Dairy • International Plant Nutrition Institute • John Deere • Kellogg Company • Land O'Lakes • Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences • Mars, Incorporated • Monsanto Company • National Association of Conservation Districts • National Association of Wheat Growers • National Corn Growers Association • National Cotton Council of America • National Potato Council • Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) • Penton Media • The Coca-Cola Company • The Fertilizer Institute • The Nature Conservancy • Syngenta Corporation • United Soybean Board • University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture • University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences • USA Rice Federation • World Resources Institute • World Wildlife Fund

  17. 2010 Stanford Study • 2010 Report • Focused on greenhouse gas emissions and high-yield agriculture

  18. 2010 Stanford Study • Advances in high-yield agriculture have prevented massive amounts of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere: • The equivalent of 590 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide.

  19. Key Assertions • Yield intensification has lessened the pressure to clear land and reduced emissions by up to 13 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year. • Additional greenhouse gas emissions from clearing land for farming would have been equal to as much as a third of the world's total output of greenhouse gases since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in 1850.

  20. Tying It All Together Inputs Per Acre … 11,200 Pounds of Corn Example: Kansas farm producing 200 bushels per acre

  21. What’s Helped?

  22. Precision Farming

  23. No-Till Farming

  24. Biotech Corn Percentage of Corn Acres Planted Source: USDA, 6/30/2011

  25. Biotech Pipeline Nitrogen utilization (Monsanto/BASF) Improved Feed (Pioneer/DuPont) VT Triple Pro (Monsanto) Drought Tolerance (Monsanto/ BASF) Agronomic Trait Nitrogen utilization (Pioneer/DuPont) RW dual Mode of action (Syngenta) Quality Trait Higher Yield (Monsanto/ BASF) Broad Lep - MIR 162 (Syngenta) Improved Feed (BASF) Drought Tolerance (Syngenta) Novel Insect Traits (Syngenta) 2009 2010 201X . Herbicide Tol. (Dow) Corn Amylase (Syngenta) “Optimum” Herb. Tol. (Pioneer/ DuPont) Increased Ethanol (Syngenta) Increased Ethanol (Pioneer/DuPont) Increased Yield (Pioneer/ DuPont) Triple-mode Herb. Tol. (Pioneer/ DuPont) Drought tolerance (Pioneer/ DuPont) Nitrogen utilization (Syngenta) “SmartStax (Monsanto/Dow) Estimated commercialization pipeline of corn biotech events. Commercialization dependent on many factors, including successful conclusion of regulatory process.

  26. What’s Sustainability? Meeting the needs of the present while improving the ability of future generations to meet their own needs

  27. Thank You

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