Earth Day (April 22) serves as a call to action, mobilizing individuals and organizations around the world to recognize the importance of protecting our natural resources. As the climate change debate has escalated in recent years, some of that focus has been on food.
 
As Rachel Kyte, the World Bank vice-president for climate change, put it, “The public connects with these issues through food better than through any other issue…we haven’t been able to mobilize people by just telling them to drive a hybrid or switch the light off.”
 
Agriculture has a bigger impact on the planet than any other human activity. To meet growing global demand for food, while reducing that impact, farmers must continue to increase the amount of food they produce while using fewer natural resources, which they’ve increasingly been doing for decades.
 
Focus on Ag column