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Ohio Farm Bureau is one of more than 30 organizations, agencies, companies and universities working with Sparks Companies to develop intensive research on seven areas of change throughout the world that will have an impact on agriculture within the next 50 to 100 years.

OFBF First Vice President Bob Peterson and Vice President of Agricultural Ecology Constance Jackson attended a Sparks Strategic Forum in early June on "Developing Business Strategies in a World of Colossal Change."

The forum was designed to allow Sparks staffers to gather thoughts and direction from the contracting participants on the seven "colossal changes" being studied:

• Global demographics
• Top-down competition in food and agriculture
• Natural resource degradation
• Trade
• Advocacy and regulatory environment
• Dietary policy
• Monoculture

This opening forum was the first phase in gathering information for a series of "white papers" that Sparks will release in early September. The participants will meet again in late September to discuss the information in the white papers and to develop strategies for dealing with the changes.

"This will really help us look forward and get a better sense of direction for agriculture as a whole and, for those of us in Ohio agriculture in particular," Jackson said. Once we get a chance to read these research papers and then discuss them further, we’ll have some insight into our competition and what factors are out there that will help us compete in the our changing global marketplace."

Speakers at the June forum were Erik Peterson, senior vice president and director of studies for the Center for Strategic and International Studies(CSIS); Paul Hewitt, director for the Global Aging Initiative for CSIS; and Aaron Salzberg senior adviser on water for the U.S. Department of State.

"Just from our discussion and interaction with these three presenters, we heard some enlightening and surprising statistics that agriculture and the world will be dealing with in the years to come," Jackson said. Here are a few:

• World population is increasing by 77 million people per year with most growth occurring in developing countries.
• If all the water in the world were represented by one gallon, only two drops are considered accessible for consumption.
• Water pollution is the number one cause of world deaths.
• China must build one medium sized power plant per week to meet its electricity demands.
• A girl born in Japan today has a 50 percent chance of seeing the year 2100, while a girl born in a developing country has a 25 percent chance of reaching her fifth birthday.
• 2.8 billion people in the world live on less than $2 a day.
• The earnings of the 225 wealthiest people in the world are equal to the earnings of the 2.7 billion poorest people in the world.

"We’re really looking forward to the information Sparks’ staff will gather with these white papers," Jackson said. "We’ll be able to identify, and get ahead of, some great opportunities and some serious challenges for agriculture in the future."