We need to grow what we know about food production.
We don’t have – and we have trouble importing – enough labor to sow and reap. So, we need to develop the tools and technology that keep American farms globally competitive.
Fortunately, we’re good at this. A half-century ago, the average U.S. farm fed 98 people. After decades of agricultural research helped farmers achieve higher yields, the average U.S. farm now feeds 169 people.
Research that created new plant varieties has saved billions of lives around the world. And agricultural research in the U.S. saves livelihoods as well as lives.
Innovation requires investment. By some estimates, there’s a 20-to-1 payoff from every dollar we spend on agricultural research.
But we’re losing ground to other nations. Inflation-adjusted U.S. investment in agricultural research has declined by one-third this century, according to the Department of Agriculture. China’s investment in agricultural research has more than quadrupled since 2000 and is now double the U.S. level.
Part of the beauty of agricultural research as a tool to even the playing field in international trade is that it does not punish other nations. It only lifts ours. For example, research supports a Florida citrus industry that exported $23.4 million worth of orange juice to Canada in 2023.
Without research, we may be leaving an opportunity on the table. Why, in a state with 1,350 miles of coastline, do we import 90% of our seafood? Can we parlay our advances in plant breeding into a Florida-produced vanilla industry that can tap into a U.S. market that imports $194 million a year? Research that provides answers could pave the way for new areas of food production, including the jobs, businesses, and economic multiplier effects that come with it.
Our farmers are fiercely independent. They prefer to get paid by the market instead of by the government. All they ask is for a fair market that gives them a shot at making a living. Agricultural research gives them that shot.
Farmers are the backbone of an industry that lifts America’s rural economies. Too often, the places our food comes from have been left behind in economic development efforts. I support the call of Florida Senate President Ben Albritton for a “rural renaissance” that grows jobs and businesses near corn, citrus and blueberries.
Farmers around the state would not be in business without the research that public universities do on their behalf. University scientists take their discoveries out of the lab and share them with farmers through demonstrations, how-to manuals and even farm visits. And they do this with American farmers, not for them or to them.
Our deep connections at public universities, rooted in decades of partnerships, allow us to get constant feedback on what problems we should be solving and on what works and what doesn’t.
Federally funded knowledge is a public good. We need to generate more of it as the challenges to producing food become more complex.
We can take a punitive approach to leveling the playing field in international trade in agriculture, or we can bet on American farmers and the scientists who support them. We can compete without conflict.
Every time we discover a way to grow more food on shrinking available land, and every time we extract more crop per drop, we are protecting our lands, keeping millions of Americans employed, and defending our national security by reinforcing our ability to feed ourselves.
The advent of artificial intelligence makes this a pivotal moment in agricultural research. We must apply AI to agriculture the way we’re seeing it drive breakthroughs in medicine, transportation and communication. AI is about to transform agriculture more profoundly than tractors and genetics have, if we invest in harnessing it to feed us.
If we don’t do it, other nations will. And our farmers will do something else. In Florida, if farmers can’t afford to farm their land, they will sell it. We call rooftops the last crop. Once a neighborhood is built, it never goes back to farming.
We can’t call on farmers to build their own labs and experiment with their livelihoods. A national investment in agricultural research is the way we take the risks of innovation, invest in moonshots and put technology into the hands of people who produce our food, feed, fiber and fuel.
J. Scott Angle is the University of Florida’s senior vice president for agriculture and natural resources and leads the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. He is the former director of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
