DBA Expansion Symposium continued from page 27 tory (and increased motivation). Ending world hunger Jeff Simmons, president of Elanco, cited research that says the world will need 100% more food by 2050. And, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s estimate, 70% of that food must come from efficiency-enhancing technologies. According to Simmons, those technologies are absolutely criti- cal at a time when the world’s population is growing by the size of Philadelphia every day, Jeff Simmons, or Chicago and Los president Angeles every month. of Elanco, “There are chapters encouraged being written that are producers wrong,” said Simmons, to become referring to individuals activists and and groups inaccu- find people rately portraying modern who they can agricultural production influence. practices. “We need to be activ- ists,” he said. Simmons urged a truce in the debate over the role of technology in the sustainable production of safe, afford- able and abundant food, in order to protect what he called the “Three Rights:” • The right for every human in the world to have access to afford- able food. • The consumer right to choose how they spend their food budget on an extremely wide variety of foods. • An environmental right to create a sustainable global food pro- duction system. Simmons showed a video called “Back to the Start,” from Chipo- tle, and said it is “a minority position trying to change the majority choice.” In reality, he said, most of the world just wants three things from their food products: 1) taste; 2) cost; and 3) nutrition. “Going back to the start could be one of the worst things,” said Simmons, who countered the video’s message, saying we need to get ‘Back to Reality’ and double the food supply on the same amount of land. Simmons challenged conference attendees to find five people they can influence, whether it be legislators, a community group member or someone at church. He encouraged producers to work on a “napkin talk,” a short response when asked what you do, and to construct the response from a food standpoint. According to Simmons you need to always ask yourself, “How can you speak louder?” p FYI ■ For more information about Dairy Business Association visit www.widba.com. ■ Presentations from the Symposium can be found at http://www.widba. com/expsymp_ppt.php.