2021 Spring Farm

Page 34 2021 Logan County Farm Outlook LINCOLN DAILY NEWS March 18, 2021 I t is believed that by 2050 mankind will be facing the greatest challenge of this age, but it is not climate change. With the current pattern of population increase, it is widely accepted that this planet will expand from the current estimate of 7,800,000,000 people (March 2020) to more than 10 billion people by 2050. The dilemma is not the size of the population, but how to feed everyone. Agricultural technology has dramatically increased crop yields in the last fifty years with hybridization, GMOs, better farming practices and incredible advances in farm equipment and machinery. U.S. grain farms have increased in size from an average of 205 acres during the 1950s to 444 acres in 2020, with some now as big as 10,000 acres under production with a lower percentage of the total population farming. Ag technology has made it possible for fewer people to produce bigger crops and better yields. Putting more acres in production, farming under glass with hydroponics, developing super crops and other amazing technologies are on their way. These great technological shifts in agriculture may not, however, be enough to bridge Solving the biggest upcoming dilemma for mankind Continue 4