Important to move to include fiber that is why we say the vegetables. Things work for people want them to try them to help them feel better to do the of dressings we spend every single day talking about. What i feel as a host icahn not use words that are floury or exalted torrey, i feel like i. M. Disenfranchise my power has been taken away. He dylan to be in the pulpit talking about how passionate you are but if i use that word it will be quoted back to me the hundred words around better about doing things right diana respectful and i heard the message. I get it. Good. I want to see the passion of the duties of a lock at sunset. [laughter] touche day. Nobody tells you not use passion but in connection with the word miracle and pill and weight loss is a recipe for disaster in this environment and terms of the people looking for an easy fix and sometimes delusional whether that will be there for them. Anybody else have anything . We all experience the feeling of elected officials and then the word can be taken out of context. [laughter] at the same time in addition to a celebrity you are a doctor so i do believe you have a duty as we have to represent to give the best evidence and when stuff is taken out of context where you admit to make mistakes you have a duty to correct the record and go forward carefully because you can use your knowledge and celebrity status and right now is seen as we go the opposite way. Has a good example i did a whole show how old green coffee bean extract and the way described was not the right way to do it. I did this several Month Program and it has no impact. Of the things i have said continued to be used. But the continual use it is helpful on emphasis of what works best a keep focusing on that. Did you ever need anybody to fill in. We have a few takers. [laughter] thank you very much. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] q a. Washington journal continues. Host and the last give a the last hour way to get a look at a recent Magazine Article of the spotlight series santa david looked at National Geographic cover the new food revolution part of an aids month series they started in may looking after feeding of world executive editor for environment joins us now to talk about the series. May try to paint the picture of the rule of agriculture across the world how it transforms the planet. And it will likely require to feed a growing population in this piece you save by 2015 there will be 2 billion more people to feed. How you come up with that number . Assuming that we will continue to harvest the crops, that comes from un members because the people are already on the ground who will make the 9 billion people of this century. So the question is how are we going to eat . What will we grow . Tom much meat and plans . The proportion is one of the big questions. Host you question how do you feed without overwhelming the planet. How does Climate Change play into that . Guest Climate Change but it is the largest enterprise on the face of the planet so were it contributes to produce and to root deforest with Carbon Dioxide and they contribute to the changes of the atmosphere but at the same time agriculture itself, i grew up on a farm and buys understand what it means when the weather does not play right to. What we have to keep in mind is climate itself is disrupted and unreliable. That is the thing that causes difficulty for crops because you need a reliable supply of rain and all of those increase in frequency of extreme weather they will add stress to meet the needs of the future population. Host what do you make of the president s unavailing day National Climate assessment . How does that play into this conversation . Guest will live in a country with temperatures shifting liggett the maps to day there has been a slight cooling in the south but it is the baseline. So it has an average of 3 Degrees Higher over the course of one year that changes what kinds of plants you grow where you live live. We have seen when turd disappear in large areas of the country and they all have an impact. People see it in their own gardens what it trees are growing. You come up with solutions for feeding 2 billion more by 2015. What you mean by the foot print . These ideas come from jobs from the guy who wrote the article from the university of minnesota and it was derived from a paper published in 2011. The idiot to freeze the footprint means and stop fighting forest that is a we have increased yields historically as we grow our agricultural production. If were in this position to save the forest or tigers we have to use stopped expanding said akers to make more of what we have in production. Host how do do that . Guest there are two things. Look at what is in production they are the yield gap already have landed production of the week to do a better job to get more off of each acre by just forming smarter to improve knowledge how to go about cropping. On another level is also improving the productivity were the efficiency that we are already doing using precision in agriculture. And what we really try to say is take the land you have and what can you do to get more out of it without also damaging . How do we produce food verses other countries . Guest in the United States we produce food in a myriad of ways and retry to get out we have huge industrial largescale monoculture that dominates landscape and also have traditionally before world war ii there was more smallscale all diversified forms that has a variety of crops but that ecological organic farming on the rise. See you have the spectrum between large individual crops and smallscale farming. Host of food that is produced in the United States, what is it used for . That is one of the interesting points. Only 55 percent of the landscape used for agriculture across the world actually produce calories and onethird uses calories for livestock and minor 10 for biofuels and other uses if you would get an acre in iowa a lot of that corn goes to feed livestock and ethanol and sugar. Host you can see three pictures of the United States. With the middle one it shows a lot of purple. That is being used for seed and fuel verses food. Guest right. Look at the world to see how landscapes are being used although we may have the most productive landscapes in the world the surprise is theyre not necessarily being used to feed people directly. Host why do you do . If this is the situation right now, the ratio of food inverses speed and fuel what you do to feed more people . What you doing in this country is one question then are you hoping to improve productivity across the world . Someone whod graduated from Land Grant University it is a very important educational tool to improve the productivity and the knowledge of farmers around the country and that seems useful know if we try to help food productivity. Actually we are best off exporting knowledge and wisdom how to make better use than to put grain on both and send it off. Host talking about the may cover story the issue of food it is in eight months series the new food revolution a democratic caller, you are up first. Caller this part of florida we grow citrus but unfortunately right now we have citrus greening. A big problem is water. Were already being a biased to look south to the miami area to see what it grows well there and move those crops up here to central florida. Organic materials into our soil to enrich our soil so that it would hold more water. Also to sequester more carbon and try and get more Natural Restoration of our Water Resources that have been , in the, unknowingly past because we do not have the science to tell us do not be ditching and draining. Host organic material and soil, if you can enrich the amount of cover in soil by using crops are not cropping the same individual crops year after year, that is very useful. Another point about citrus greening, that is very devastating and currently has no solution. Scientists are trying to figure out how to solve that issue and they currently do not have a solution. For this step step four in the story is to shift diets. What are you saying here . What we are saying is the first thing we mead to understand is how we are coming back to landscapes and what are we growing crops for. What we need to realize is when you grow a pound of beef you might spend 810 pounds of grain to grow that beef. If you grow a pound of fish you might spend more than a pound of grain to grow that. And the question is how much is appropriate for your own health and the health of say the planet. If everybody were to eat like americans we would probably need upwards of three planets to do that. The question we are trying to raise is trying to help get people to think about this. Do we need to eat meat seven days a week . Maybe we can dial back for our own health and reduce the demands. Host what about the developing countries where they are starting to consume more meat. That demand is going up. Guest and now you see deforest and the crops are being exported for the rising demand for meat. It is a situation where we cannot say you cannot eat meat. All we can say is here is watt what it takes to make this happen. What we are trying to do is connect eaters with farmers and eaters with the land and the planet that is supporting them so people can begin to understand the implications of their food choices. If we can get people to think about food consistently maybe we can have a chance to raise food and agriculture in the profile of the american discourse. Host what is next on the series . Guest the june issue has a piece on aquaculture. The question now is becoming is it possible to farm the sea . Is it possible to grow protein in the sea without detearadeclie sea . We explore the question in july. The question of what impact does investment by countries in Large Companies in places like africa, some call it a landgrid si situation, but we are trying to explore the benefits and cost coming. Host and National Geographic is known for their photographs and i want to tell the viewers about the pictures they are seeing. This is of scott city, kansas. Eachperson can harvest 28 acres of wheat an hour. Most of the food americans eat is now produced on large scale mechanized farmed that grow row after row and allow farmers to cover more ground with less labor. Talk about what is happening in agriculture. Guest that is what is interesting about precision farming. We have the ability to look at land productivity for decaddeca and create programs that say what seeds, what fertilizer they need and what kind of pesticides. If a farmer puts too much fertilizer and too many other inputs on and isnt getting a better yield that is reducing the potential profit. We are using gps and precise locationbased tools. It is like a science. Host drones. Drones as well . Guest that is an emerging area. If we can get commercial clearance for using some of these tools it is actually very useful way to monitor crop conditions. One thing that is important now is what is the health of the crop through the growing scenes after you have planted it. You need that knowledge so you can go out and say if you have irrigated land it will help you understand how much water and the additional nutrients now need. Host how specific can you get . Down to what level . Guest we get down to like ten meters square. Host another picture in the may edition is one from brazil where 8 million hens lay 5. 4 million eggs a day. Egg consumption has increased sevenfold driving a huge expansion of large scale animal operations. Talk about this. Guest what we have is my midcentury more people will be living in cities than are alive on the planet today. When we lived on the land we grew our own food but now we have an urbanization rush across the planet. Food has to come from some place. So farmers are being tasked for how do you grow food for people that live nowhere near rural landscapes. This is what we are being pushed to do. Host eight million hens lay 5. 4 million eggs a day. Lets go to the lines. Ben in california. Caller i had a question as far as subsidizing farmers not to grow food. Guest a question regarding subsidizing farmers not to grow food . Maybe it is more of a question of subsidizing farmers to not grow certain kind of crops or encouraging other practices. For a long time there have been programs to encourage Soil Conservation and not plant there same crop year after year and encourage crop rotation. Those are benefits that can actually help the landscape. Host and we are talking with the executive editor of the environment from the National Geographic talking about their may cover issues taking a look at food. They are launching an eightMonth Program on this. This is tweeted do we need a global food ration body that tells us what to meet. Guest i think we need a more comprehensive global body that helps us understanding what is going on on all of the Farming Landscapes around the world. I dont think we are at at point where we need to think about rationing food. I suppose we are already growing enough food now to meet our needs. The question is can we get it distributed. Can the people that need it afford it . What kind of diet are we choosing . If we are going to eat meat all of the time we cannot sustain that. But if we can have a mix between plantbased foods that are heathier and it will be easier on the planet. Host joe from west colonial, texas. Independent caller. Morning. You are on the air. Caller i lived down in this area for many, many years and i have seen countless acres of good, rich soil being covered up by houses and businesses. At one time you could drive from houston 40 miles to the next town and you would be in the country. That doesnt exist anymore. I am starting to think what needs to be done. This whole world can only hold on to so many people. And there has to be host joe, are you talking about population or urban sprawl . Caller i am talking about all of it. Guest urban sprawl is an interesting question. In many cases we are covering up some of the most productive landscapes for urban sprawl. In china, their imports are up because they are growing urban situations and taking good land out of production. Population dynamics we need to keep in mind we are seeing a flattening of population growth and in the places where we still have high fur fertility and countries in subsaharan where they have little impact on the resources. The western industrialized nations it isnt just house education and Workforce Committee people and children we have it how many resources we are using per person. Host barbara from georgia. Democratic caller. You are on the air. Caller i would like to refer for a program from bill mahr who had a man on his show talking about free grazing cattle can bring about the problem with carbon. You allow the cows to roam and the insects live off the cow and gather the Waste Program and bury it. Do you know about this program . Guest sure. That is an interesting dynamic about how we should farm livestock. There is a variety of people like joel salton with the idea of rotation grazing and you dont raise animals in confinement. And instead of feeding them grains that were grown by sunshine you just put them out in the field and let them eat the grass grown by the sunshine. And their feces help fertilize the landscape. It is a really beneficial way to go about it. Host one of the pictures in the may cover story is this one from a pig farm in brazil where the sows are confined to sectional crates. The hog farms can be big polluters is what National Geographic writes. The average pick produces 13 pounds of manure a day and this can be recyclospora recycled. That is a question we need to con front in our own country. When you see this across the states there is ground water pollution. The there is an issue there. Host zackry in california. Caller thank you for taking my call. I just tuned in so i am not sure if this is covered. I have a book by john brian star who is a lecture at the Political Science department at jail universities and in his book he makes a claim that once the chinese middle class reaches a point it will be impossible to meet its foods need because there is not enough grain for the cows to feed the emerging chinese class. I would like your opinion. Guest it is highly possible. In a larger measure that is what we are trying to draw a circle around here with this story and series. To eat the way we do and continue to do that requires resource and a lot of resources with water, land and energy and grains. It is true that there is only so many acres that we can devote to agriculture. If we are going to devote more there is a price we pay for cutting down more land. So to come back to what we are trying the case we are trying to make in the story lets look at what we are doing with our landscapes and can we do a better job and think about how we are eating and reduce food waste. Host and step five is reducing waste. What are you saying here . Guest there are two things here and they come down under the idea of food waste. There is the idea of food waste in the United States. Go to a restaurant and they will give you a serving that is twice as big as what you want and if you take it home and eat it, great. But there is somewhere like north of 40 of all food in this country is thrown out. If you could just do a better job with the food you have that would reduce our consumption of food and probably be heathier. The other part of the question is on the production side. When you look across developing countries and look in countries where there is emerging Agriculture Systems or not good infrastructure the question is lack of refrigeration and transportation and storage that keeps disease out of the crops. All of that empaimpacts how muc people eat. Host in those countries that is how they quote waste food versus how we do. Guest right. If you are trying to improve the diets and health of people in developing countries helping stabilize the front end systems that allow you to get more food to people and to the market is important. Host lets talk about another picture. This is from a farm in greenfield, california. Workers harvest celery to be shipped to United States and asia dubbed americans salad bowl. She relies on ground water for irrigation which could be at risk if the drought continues. Guest and we have a story on the decline of the western snow pack and the drought in the west that is happening as a result of loss of surface water. There is a rush to draw wells in the Central Valley of california and the amount of water taken and you keep drawing it down that is your last gasp hedge against desiccation. So we have to be careful about drawing it down too much. Host lets hear from steve in concord, massachusetts. Democratic caller. Caller i read the mono system of agriculture leads to increased erosion of top soil. How big a problem is that . Guest the monoculture system of agriculture leading to increased erosion of top soil i would say that is a generality that is not defendable. It is possible that bad cropping practices can lead to erosion of top soil. But farmers are not going to knowingly destroy their soil because that is the resource they need to stay in business. And you are correct that we have seen a lot of top soil erosion and if you look in the gulf of mexico there is a zone where you get soil erosion and nutrient runoff. I think the solution to that is not just monoculture but it is actually using cover crops and thinking smartly about how you can protect the soil that is essentially in your care. Host what about the production of food and Technology Used for . Like this picture at monsantos North Carolina lab where they have corn plants emerging from a photo booth that documents their growth as they try to develop a strain that needs less fertilizer and water because reducing the two is key to feeding the upcoming decades. Guest that is an important question and starts the discussion on genetics and agriculture. We hear a lot about gmos but we are talking about the use of the same kinds of decoding the genetics of seeds and plants to understand the good traits. Using the same technology you can breed by genes instead of look. By genotype and you identify that crop variety has good drought tolerance and lets breed it with this variety and see if we can get that trait into the crop. The picture on the screen is what they are doing. They are monitoring the performance of the plant and take pictures of the plant every day. Just like the planting and the fertilizeing in the fields this too is very precision and this is one of the very interesting areas where you are actually using the tools of genetic breeding but in conventional breeding to get better crop varietys that are resilient to flood, salt water, heat, and drought. It is a tough thing to do. One thing we need to understand is breeding new varieties of crops takes a long time. We cannot just turn them around. This is one area where we are trying to improve the variety of crops to deal with the Climate Changed world. Host how long until you see outcomes . Guest it used to take decades but now a few years. Once you breed and replicate the traits you have to grow out enough seeds so you can sell it. Host is this private companies . Or the government . Guest we have both public and private companies. There are companies trying to do this work. This is the same kind of work at universities and the International Research centers and the International Rights institute in the philippines is working on this. Host ann in green bank, west virginia. Independent caller. Caller good morning. I had a question. For those farmers that are growing crops for the specific purpose of fuel i am wondering if they are also growing additional crops to fill in the gap that those would have been for fuel . And my second comment was i wondered in the agriculture culture whether anyone does a year of rest for all of the land. Guest as far as growing crops for bio fuels farmers go to the store like everyone else so that is one way they are taking care of themselves. But it is like when you grow a crop and you grow corn or soybeans on a large scale you are not saying what its final purpose is going to be when you sell it. It might be livestock feed or High Fructose Corn Syrup or even fuel. Host ethanol. Guest and as far as giving the land a rest absolutely. You see in the wheat growing areas in southeast washington where it is dry they have to give the land a rest so enough moisture can accumulate so there is enough water in the soil for the next crop year. Host pat is next from alabama. Republican caller. Caller some year ago i read a paper on reducing the amount of land needed for farming while increasing the food supply at the sa