Photo Courtesy:University of Nebraska – CUTLINE 1: Donnie Smith, former president and CEO of Tyson Foods, speaks about global food security during the Heuermann Lecture Jan. 9 at Nebraska Innovation Campus. (Craig Chandler/University Communication)
The use of genetically modified organisms has been a controversial in past years. Donnie Smith, who served as Tyson Foods CEO from 2009 to 2016 and currently is a consultant to the company says,”People are fearful of food today and the way it’s being produced…We have a huge challenge in front of us.”
That challenge he is talking about is how consumer’s lack of trust in industry practice is causing unnecessary harm to the food industry.
Smith talked about this problem in his presentation on Tuesday evening at a Heuermann Lecture hosted by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His presentation was titled “Global Food Security, The War of the Word.”
Unfounded public fears about food people eat pose a major challenge for agriculture and Smith says, “Opponents claim ingesting foods that contain GMOs can create health risks, as well as harm the environment.”
Smith attributed the “hysteria” surrounding the use of GMOs to fictitious information and claims being spread rapidly on social media platforms as well as documentaries like “Food, Inc.”
GMOs are crafted through a laboratory process in which a plant, animal or other microorganism genetic makeup is altered. GMOs have been shown to improve nutritional quality of food, as well as efficiency in production and environmental sustainability. GMOs also give foods a longer shelf life, which creates less waste. Smith said roughly 25 to 30 percent of the world’s food is wasted each year.
Smith states there has been no credible research proving there’s a single problem caused by GMO’s in the past 20 years. What most see today though are the non-GMO labels sweeping across grocery stores.”
According to Smith, the only way to fight this problem is for the Ag industry to speak up for itself and its practices.
“We need to take back the story and win this argument,” he said. “If people believe these claims it’s going to be extremely damaging.”
Smith said that the next generation of farmers and agriculture professionals need to be ready to not only defend their craft, but to also come up with solutions on how to feed the world’s population in years to come. Smith said that when he began his career with Tyson Foods in 1980, the world produced 2.1 trillion metric tons of food. By the end of 2017, the world produced about 4.5 trillion metric tons.
While Smith saw food production double in his professional lifetime, he said there are still at least 800 million food insecure people around the world and he is worried about the demand that is to come in the next 35 years.
“We have to become more efficient in the next 35 years in order to feed the world’s population,” he said. “We have to learn to communicate what we’re doing and how we’re doing it.”
