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The Seed
Industry: Today and Tomorrow
Looking out the
window at my small country farm, I see numerous fields growing
in my backyard. Even further in the distance are more varieties
of crops. The different shades of green show that it is
mid-summer, when many of the crops are developing. It’s
fascinating to realize that such a huge field can grow and
become the food that the world consumes. Then I realize that
this field started as a simple bag of seed. One tiny kernel can
produce hundreds more. That’s part of our life. We consume
what the land provides for us. The seed industry is an
extremely important part of our economy and lifestyle that will
grow and thrive as the years progress.
In order to
properly study the impact that seed has had on the economy, one
must first consider three questions. First, how has the seed
industry become an important part of agriculture? According to
the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, agriculture is defined as
“the science, art, or practice of cultivating the soil,
producing crops, and raising livestock and in varying degrees
the preparation and marketing of the resulting products.” All
of these aspects have to do with the seed industry. When a
farmer cultivates the land, he/she will eventually put the seed
into it. Planting seeds results in the production of crops.
When a farmer raises livestock, he/she needs to feed them a
variety of crops, which, as explained before, requires seed. As
you can clearly see, the seed industry is incorporated into
every aspect of agriculture.
Second, what is
the future like for the seed industry? Well, the seed industry
is researching many new and improved brands and styles of
seeds. One of these is to enhance the seeds so that they are
more resistant to different kinds of diseases and fungi. That
way, the plants have a better survival rate when they germinate
and begin to develop into mature plants. As years progress,
less and less land is available for farmers to plant crops. As
the population continues to grow at an extreme rate, we need to
find ways to produce more with less land. The seed industry
needs to focus on this aspect. As the years have progressed
production has greatly increased. Less than 2 million farmers
are feeding the nearly 290 million people in the United States.
That means that each farmer needs to produce enough food for
about 145 people. According to the National Corn Growers
Association, in 2003 about 78.7 million acres were planted in
crops. From these acres, about 10.1 billion bushels of crops
were produced. These numbers are currently fairly high. But
the seed industry needs to improve their product. Seeds need to
produce more bushels per acre to meet the ever-growing
population.
The last question
that we need to consider is what role do the cooperatives play
in the future of the seed industry? A cooperative is basically
a business owned by its members who join together to increase
buying power and provide themselves with needed goods and
services. Cooperatives will mostly likely combine and become
larger in order to meet the future demand of the seed industry.
According to the Iowa Institute for Cooperatives, currently 4
out of 10 American farmers are involved in a co-op. This number
will increase as years progress.
When glancing over
my farm, I begin to realize the importance of the seed
industry. Overall, the seed industry is crucial to our
agricultural lifestyle and the rest of the world. We, as a
society, need to realize the incredible impact that one tiny
little seed has on the rest of the world.
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