115 A Challenging and Motivational Presentation to Past, Present and Future Animal and Forage Scientists and Professionals

Abstract

Abstract Today’s 20-something graduate students will be close to 50-something professionals by midcentury. They have the opportunity, perhaps even the ethical and moral duty, to sustainably increase supply of animal source foods in humanity’s global food supply. The world these animal and forage science professionals will serve will contain perhaps 2 billion more human beings, with most of this increase coming from people living to 70 years old and beyond. Malnutrition, broadly and properly understood, is already an existential crisis today. Global agriculture will be required to produce not just more food, but food of greater nutritional value. Animal agriculture in general, and ruminant animal agriculture in particular, is an essential part of all food systems. Any sincere conversation about sustainable food systems must include efforts to increase the affordability and accessibility of culturally appropriate animal source foods. Improved livestock-cropping systems, which will include forages of various types, offer the potential to produce more food from the same land without increasingly expensive inputs of fertilizer and energy while stewarding precious resources. The unique ecological role of ruminant animals and their essential role in converting human-inedible biomass into high-quality sources of essential nutrition will be a fundamental part of these systems. The sustainable intensification of global animal agriculture must become a high priority of funding for research and teaching during the next two and one half decades. These realities exist, however, in a climate dominated by anti-animal agriculture messaging in media and political debates. What can we older professionals be doing to recruit, train and equip the next generation(s) of animal and forage scientists who must meet this challenge?