Demand for our major crops is expected to rise 50 percent by 2030, while we look increasingly to croplands for energy as well as food and feed. This is at a time when the increases in yield seen over the past 60 years are stagnating and global change poses a further risk to production. New biotechnological approaches are providing opportunities to overcome these limitations, while new sustainable energy crops could be produced at scale using land unsuited to food crops. Yet societal and policy acceptance of these opportunities is likely our greatest barrier to having it all in 2030.
Stephen P. Long, Gutgesell Endowed University Professor of Plant Biology and Crop Sciences University of Illinois, will give a keynote pressentation for the the 2013 AAAS Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Lecture at AAAS headquarters on June 25 at 4 pm ET.
A panel discussion will take place after Long's presentation. The panelists are:
Richard Bonanno, President, Massachusetts Farm Bureau Federation