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A report describing U.S. agriculture 13 years from now is available through the AFBF Web site, http://www.fb.org/maapp/ The report, officially released at the AFBF annual meeting, said American agriculture will be a vital, more profitable sector of the economy, successfully competing with foreign commodities, and that tomorrow’s farmers and ranchers will receive greater recognition for their efforts to conserve natural resources and use environmentally friendly technologies, while still providing consumers with the world’s safest and most abundant food supply.

The report was produced after two years of study by members of AFBF’s Making American Agriculture Productive and Profitable (MAAPP) Committee. The 23 farmers and ranchers, which included former OFBF President Irv Bell, were asked to develop a vision of what U.S. agriculture should look like in 2019 when Farm Bureau celebrates its 100th anniversary.

"Education, training and technology are going to be even more important for the next generation of farmers and ranchers," said William Sprague, MAAPP committee chairman and Kentucky farmer. "Technology used to change every 15 or 20 years, now it changes in just two or three years. Our farmers are going to have to be flexible and willing to change to take advantage of opportunities in the next 20 years."

According to Illinois farmer Ron Warfield, the MAAPP committee’s vice chairman, "There will be a role for government to be involved in agriculture policy in 2019, but that role should change. In 2019 the government's role should be to regulate open and competitive markets but not to over-regulate the industry; to provide risk management but not eliminate the risk; to invest in research but let the private sector market the technology; and to provide infrastructure and incentives for rural economic growth but not own or operate the resources."

The MAAPP committee is not a policy-making entity, and its report does not replace Farm Bureau’s established policy-making process. "MAAPP members put together a large body of information for our members to consider as they work on developing policy for the future," said Bob Young, AFBF chief economist. "They’ve put together a broad set of information on the importance of rural economies to agriculture, to the challenges of the environment, from the opportunities of trade to the challenges of restructuring agricultural policy here in the U.S. But it will always be up to the Farm Bureau membership to set the path for the organization," Young said.

OFBF Vice President for Agricultural Ecology Constance Jackson said she sees similarities between the MAAPP report and the Agricultural Roadmap that OFBF completed this year. She intends to reconvene the roadmap committee this spring, including Bell, to look at how the two reports can be combined and then develop an implementation plan.

She said the MAAPP report has been given to the OFBF board of trustees and will be given to OFBF commodity committee chairmen and the 2006 state policy development committee.

Caption: Former OFBF President Irv Bell was a member of the AFBF Making American Agriculture Productive and Profitable Committee. The committee released its report describing what U.S. agriculture should look like in 2019.