Preamble: Humankind through the centuries has chosen to eke out our existence from a natural world that has been deeply scarred by the dynamic yet disruptive footprint of humanity, now surpassing 8 billion.  We have altered the native landscapes on every continent to feed, clothe, establish, and protect ourselves in a multitude of cultures, languages, technical waves, and governing structures. Driven by a singular goal, not simply to survive, but to live and thrive, the unintended consequences to the earth’s resources can no longer be ignored as the abundance of soils, seas, rivers, and forests is increasingly diminished. For those of us who manage these life systems and resources to produce the food and fiber for the world, the burden is on us to understand and acknowledge the past to embrace the present and prepare for an intentional, but predictably unpredictable future.

The staggering increases in knowledge, productivity, and population in just the past 100 years reflect a profound transformation of humanity’s physical and mental capacity for both positive and negative change. We are keenly aware that any prolonged collapse of global food systems can create a world of scarcity and struggle where nations fight for resources and face the greater threat of battling those inescapable forces of nature that we have tried to control. 

There has never been a greater need for an agricultural renaissance than now. The many voices of farmers, echoing through centuries of scarcity and abundance challenge us to find new pathways. Paths that produce abundance for expanding populations while rejecting the wasteful destruction of resources of our past and present. Paths that seek new ways to collaborate and innovate. If we choose the unprecedented pathway of collaboration as a species, as a people who inhabit this small planet, we may be able to tell, ultimately, a more rewarding and remarkable tale of a species that chooses living over survival and finds a way to thrive sustainably.

The United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030, describe humanity in a world that has yet to exist.  It lays out a bold and ambitious vision of how humankind might come together to collaboratively build an innovative framework, with systematic international cooperation and design to set our human systems in alignment and harmony with natural systems.  It requires the participation and leadership of agriculture, farmers, and their partners to establish the foundational framework for achieving the SDGs. Without successful agriculture, humankind cannot thrive.  It is our roadmap towards an Agricultural Renaissance.

The complete report can be found at Embracing a 21st Century Agricultural Renaissance