Family Farm Alliance: Video Shows Solutions Farmers Can Offer to Meet Global Challenges
This week, Family Farm Alliance president Pat O’Toole and other national ag leaders showed a national audience how farmers can deliver “solutions from the land” that encompass not only food and energy production and related economic benefits, but also address challenges like climate change.
Mr. O’Toole, who owns and operates a large-scale cattle and sheep operation that straddles the Colorado-Wyoming border, joined four other farmers in a 20-minute video presentation that premiered at the 2020 Sustainable Agriculture Summit this week. In this video, each producer explains how their operation employs innovative, sustainable practices, including integrated land management systems that produce multiple benefits such as boosting clean water and stemming climate change.
Other producers sharing their experiences at the summit were AG Kawamura (a California grower and shipper), Fred Yoder (an Ohio wheat and grain farmer), Adrienne Mollor (a Massachusetts cranberry operation owner and grower for the Ocean Spray Cooperative), and Trey Hill, whose family owns a Maryland farm that grows corn, wheat and soybeans.
All five producers are leaders in Solutions from the Land (SfL), which was created seven years ago as an ambitious undertaking to advance land-based solutions to global challenges. SFL’s vision is that, by 2030, America’s farms, ranches and forests will be at the forefront of resolving food system, energy, environmental and climate challenges and achieving global sustainable development goals.
“Much of the Family Farm Alliance’s recent work in the climate arena is accomplished through our involvement with SfL,” said Mr. O’Toole. “We support SfL’s belief that farmers and ranchers need to be at the center of all related land management discussions and decisions.”
The video also serves as a preview of a SfL white paper and video case study series set for release in January 2021, that will outline what farmers need to deliver high value solutions that will improve rural livelihoods and the planet.
“The group’s participation in the Sustainable Agriculture Summit shows how farmers can deliver solutions from the land that address food and energy production, economic development, biological diversity and climate change,” said Ernie Shea, SfL President (EShea@SfLDialogue.net).
SfL builds and facilitates state, national and global initiatives and alliances through which farmers, ranchers, foresters and collaborating partners showcase examples of innovation and proactively advocate for policies, partnerships, investments and research that will enable agricultural landscapes to deliver near-term, cost-effective, integrated solutions to global mega-challenges: food and energy security; sustainable economic development; climate change and environmental improvement. For more on SfL, click HERE.
Thanks to SfL for today’s blog, which formed the basis for this update.
