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From the President
Agriculture Is Our History and Our Future
President Alastair Summerlee welcomes comments on his column at president@uoguelph.ca.
Most of us already know that U of G is the place to go for advice on the role agriculture can play in changing lives and improving life in Canada and around the world. Still, it's nice to have external validation of our prowess from time to time. And we had just that recently in spades.
Representatives from the World Bank were in Guelph last month seeking the University's feedback on its 2008 World Development Report, which calls for greater investment in agriculture in developing countries.
The report says that most of the 900 million rural people in the developing world who live on less than $1 a day are engaged in agriculture. If the goal of halving extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 is to be realized, agriculture must be front and centre on the development agenda, says the World Bank.
Jimmy Smith, a specialist from the World Bank's Agriculture and Rural Development Division and one of the advisers on the 2008 report, spent two hours listening to what our students, faculty and staff had to say on the subject.
While he was here, he was asked by a TV reporter why he came to Guelph seeking advice. His answer reiterated what I said earlier: There is no better place the University is known for its expertise in the field.
Indeed, U of G ranked seventh among universities worldwide for its impact on agricultural sciences during the past decade in an international survey conducted last year. We were the only Canadian university among the top 25 institutions ranked by Science Watch for agricultural research.
But our expertise goes beyond being home to Canada's oldest and largest agricultural school and having influence and significance. Guelph is also all about the future of agriculture and what agriculture will mean to the future.
And like the World Bank, U of G believes agriculture has a central role to play in the future of this country and the world, and that now is the time to invest in this critical area.
For starters, agriculture is vital to Canada's economy, having an enormous impact on our gross domestic product, with an estimated worth of $42.2 billion, according to the Census of Agriculture.
But its impact goes far beyond economics. Agriculture has everything to do with everyone, affecting the food we eat, the air we breathe and the water we drink.
Strong environmental practices can keep the land, water and air sound. Food that is safely grown, processed and distributed can help keep humans healthy.
Indeed, agriculture is our history and our future and the future of others.
As the World Bank points out, improving agricultural practices is fundamental to helping developing countries with sustainability issues. And nations around the world rely on U of G's agricultural scientists for guidance and assistance in this area. Our agricultural researchers have a history of responding to needs around the globe, and they give generously and selflessly of their time and resources.
For example, right now our researchers are in Ghana training men and women as agroforestry technologists; in Sri Lanka helping to reconstruct, in an environmentally sustainable way, communities shattered by the tsunami; and in Vietnam teaching farmers the business of beekeeping.
Here in Canada, agriculture is also key to our health and well-being, now and in the future, and U of G is leading the charge.
We're working to keep food safe and to become more environmentally conscious and sustainable. We are also increasing understanding of how what we eat is affected for better or worse by how we live.
We have developed ways of producing conventional foods more efficiently, with lower negative environmental impacts and with improvements in quality, safety and nutrition.
Our researchers have also found new ways to use food to reduce risks of disease and to even fight diseases such as cancer.
We have also discovered how to derive energy from renewable plant and animal resources, to modify plants to produce pharmaceuticals and designer proteins, and to use plants to remove heavy metals from the environment.
We will even be creating new industrial crops that can be turned into composite materials used to make interior automobile components. Imagine a car having a green interior, with the dashboard, seats, door panels and other parts made from composites of agricultural crops such as corn and wheat.
All these efforts will be at the forefront of our agenda as we work to renew and further our contract with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Our enhanced partnership with the ministry supports our research in this vital field and underpins the application and innovation of knowledge. It's vital that the government continue to back this groundbreaking model.
For agriculture is about protecting and cultivating the essentials for quality of life food, water, environment and healthy living.
It's also fundamental to the University's fulfilling its strategic goals of promoting health and combatting disease, engaging citizens to build sustainable communities and understanding life to shape the future.