AgriCultural Fusion

It takes a village… a global village

For the past several years one of the hottest trends in food has been cultural fusion, two or more cultures contributing to one dish or a restaurant concept. For example, last year after the Alltech Symposium we went to a little place called The Local Tacowhere I enjoyed the fusion of Asian and Latin American dishes with my Korean BBQ Tacos. I also had a Buffalo Chicken Taco. Another fusion of cultures. Oh my goodness! They were amazing!

As I was thinking about this year’s conference, my mouth watering in anticipation of some more Korean BBQ tacos, I realized that those culturally-infused tacos were a kind of symbol of where agriculture is going in the future. We have to embrace AgriCultural Fusion or we will get left in the dust.

This was my third trip to the Alltech Symposium. Last year, I wrote about the things that global agricultural companies do for the average consumer. It’s always an enjoyable time, a great time to interact with my blogging buddies, enjoy some fermented beverages, and learn about the next big thing in agriculture.

This symposium is by-far the most international meeting I attend regularly. This year, 88 countries were represented among the attendees. The conference is translated into 6 languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese. Alltech is involved in agriculture all over the world. The founder’s son, Dr. Mark Lyons, is currently in China working for the company.

I love meeting and visiting with people involved in agriculture from all over the world. This year I made a new friend from the Netherlands. In year’s past I’ve met folks from Mexico, Venezuela, and several from Ireland. Every one of them has a place in global food production.

Everyone involved in agriculture is thinking about and preparing to feed the 9 billion people that will populate the Earth in the year 2050. In the livestock industry, we are especially concerned with the 3 billion people will enter the middle class in that time and be demanding more animal-based foods like meat, milk, and eggs.

It will take a global effort to get us there; a global village to raise all the food we need and get it delivered to people in a safe and sustainable way. In agriculture, we will have to learn to embrace doing things in new ways to produce enough food to feed everyone.

General Colin Powell was a speaker at the conference and I think he had a great quote about China. He said, “The Chinese have a different system, and they like it. They used it to pull 400 million people out of poverty.”

I don’t mean that we will have to all do things exactly the same way, but we need to have some AgriCultural Fusion to improve everyone’s productivity. We will learn things from South Americans and Africans and Asians and Europeans and Australians and apply what works in the US. They will do the same in their country.

You wouldn’t sell many Korean BBQ tacos if that combination didn’t taste good. (mmm… tacos)

Feeding the world is going to take thinking globally and acting locally. AgriCultural fusion shows itself in lots of ways already.

• It is as small as me trying to figure out how to grow Chinese cabbage in my back yard.
• Cattle breeders in the US use Japanese cattle breeds such as Wagyu or Akaushi to improve marbling in our beef.
•  It may be applying techniques of Korean natural farming to farms in Hawaii.
• Students at Abilene Christian University research techniques for raising goats and share them with African farmers.
• Americans teach pork and dairy farming techniques to farmers in China.
• Charities, like Heifer International, give livestock to families in the developing world and teach them how to care for them.

AgriCultural fusion is happening all around us. Thanks to technology, our chance to learn from other cultures is only limited by the speed of our smart phone.

It will be so exciting to see where we go from here.

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Christmas and Hunger

Last weekend I had an amazing experience. We drove 6 hours to Dallas to work in the Operation Christmas Child shoebox processing center. Operation Christmas Child is an arm of Samaritan’s Purse and collects personal, shoe-box sized gift boxes from Christians in the US (and other countries) and sends them to children in need in the developing world. We have participated in this program for 6 Christmases sending boxes, but this was our first opportunity to help process the boxes for OCC. In the 6 hours we worked, our team of about 9 or 10 people processed approximately 1300 boxes. We were one of at least 18 teams working, and a second shift went to work after we left. They expected to process over 600,000 boxes at that center this year and over 7 million boxes total.  It was such a rewarding experience.

Working at the Operation Christmas Child Processing
Center has been one of the highlights of my Christmas so far.
We even found some 4H stickers on some boxes.

Back to food…

With this season of giving and all the joy it brings, I can’t help but think of those who go without. Without food, without clothes, without enough money to buy gifts for their families. In Dallas this weekend, I saw several billboards about hunger and the people that suffer with hunger. I’ve been wanting to write a post about hunger for some time, I think God was telling me it was time.

Facts about hunger

The facts and figures on global hunger are staggering.

·         Hunger kills more people globally than AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis COMBINED

·         805 million people do not have enough food to live active healthy lives (That’s 1 in 9)

·         Poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of the deaths of children under 5.

·         In a world where 1 in 4 kids’ growth is stunted due to poor nutrition, adding one egg per day can increase a child’s height and weight by 50%.

But what I find even more amazing are the hunger statistics in developed countries like the US.

·         49 million Americans are food insecure

·         Almost 16 million children are food insecure nationally (about 1 in 5 US kids)

·         Arkansas tops the list in the percentage of food insecure households, followed by Mississippi, Texas, Tennessee, and North Carolina (hits a little too close to home, doesn’t it?)

·         In the US, 4.8 million seniors are food insecure (about 8%)

These facts came from World Food Programme, ENOUGH movement, and Feeding America.

What can be done?

Obviously, you can give to your local food bank or food pantry. Kids have canned food drives all the time, and it’s really easy to send a few cans of green beans or corn. However, remember that the most expensive nutrient is protein. It may cost a little more to send canned chili or stew, meaty soups, tuna, pasta with meat balls, Vienna Sausages, or even peanut butter, but it will be much appreciated. Protein helps people fill fuller longer and helps kids learn.

Several lists of things food banks need have been making the rounds on social media, check out these from Second Harvest Food Bank, Buzz Feed, and KORD Radio. Of course, monetary donations can have a bigger impact than food because food banks can buy exactly what they need, and they can buy food at discounted prices.

Dairy farmers like my friend Carriework with Feeding America to provide families local milk. You can donate to their cause with a simple text.

To combat global hunger, Heifer International gives people in developing countries livestock to raise for milk, eggs, and meat. For as little as $20 you can donate a flock of chickens or geese to a struggling community. One summer, our church raised enough money to purchase a heifer. Samaritan’s Purse has similar programs that give goats and other farm animals to families in need. This kind of giving empowers people to provide for themselves and stimulated the economy in the impoverished communities.

You can volunteer. Call the local food bank or food pantry to find out when they need helpers. Give time to the Salvation Army. Locally, we have Cobblestone Farm where food is grown to support hungry families in the community. Volunteers come throughout the year to plant, tend and harvest crops that given to local folks in need or sold to fund their other giving programs.

Don’t know where to look for volunteer opportunities? Try searching Volunteer Match.

The easiest way to help is to spread the word.

• Talk about hunger.  

• Share these statistics with you friends and family.  

• Like and follow some of these groups on social media and share their message.

Awareness of the issue is the first step to starting to solve the problem.

I can’t imagine not having enough money to provide food for my kids, especially during Christmas. It just breaks my heart to think of people going through this joyous holiday season with the worry of not having enough to eat.

Think about ways you can help.

Share in the comments what you and your family do to combat hunger locally, nationally, and globally.

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