Future of Agriculture FOA 202: Agribusiness' Role in Sustainability and Food Security
What does food security mean? We hear about it frequently but this complex category involves much more than just assessing our agricultural capabilities. The main pillars of food security involve food affordability, food availability, food quality, food safety, and natural resource and resilience. One tool for evaluating where companies and governments land is provided in the Food Security Index Report performed by the Economist Intelligence Unit and sponsored by Corteva. Dana Bolden joins us today from Corteva where he acts as the Global Corporate Communications Leader. He shares the motivation behind creating the Food Security Index Report and the impact it could have.
“We really wanted to put into the mainstream discussions about food security.” - Dana Bolden
Over the years there has been a shift of interest in these annual reports. You now find local governments taking positions on the data and working to increase their rating. Dana shares his optimism about how the data will influence global food protocol. Getting the governments to take ownership and discuss their efforts towards food security, food sourcing and feeding populations is “a conversation that we want to have.” Corteva’s perception of food sustainability is “trying to create a profitable business model in a sustainable way….using fewer inputs to get more yield and profitability while continuing to be responsible stewards in the environment.”
“This is why we do things like the Food Security Index. To show governments that the traditional ways do not need to be the ways of the future. There’s technology that’s out there that can help agriculture become more effective with less impact on the environment and we need you to embrace it. We need the industry to embrace it.” - Dana Bolden
To further highlight these efforts, Corteva also sponsors the Climate Positive Challenge. This program provides $500,000 to growers that can demonstrate that they have scalable sustainable practices. Corteva does not consider themselves exempt from following sustainable practices either. They went public in June and are actively collecting a year's worth of data that they will share in order to hold themselves accountable and also plan for the future.
This Week on The Future of Agriculture Podcast:
- Learn about the Food Security Index Report
- Meet Dana Bolden, Global Corporate Communications Leader at Corteva
- Explore what Food Security means to Corteva and the actions they are taking to promote it
- Learn about the effects the Index Report has had at both local and global levels.
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