Milling & Baking News - March 15, 2016 - 42

Washington X

the United States has a "strange and dysfunctional food culture," where people
think food should be really cheap.
"We think that we should pay the least
amount of money that we can for the
food you grow," she said. "And I think
we have to find a way to change that."
Ms. Hess encouraged those in attendance at the conference to think creatively about how to get more food into
the hands of people who need it most.
She also mentioned the need for creating new farmers, pointing to military
veterans as a potential pool of candidates to fill those roles.
For Ilene Gordon, chief executive officer of Ingredion, the challenges center
around innovation and technology.
"When I think about the way to solve
some of these problems, I think about innovation and technology," Ms. Gordon
said. "For example, this affordability issue (that Ms. Hess mentioned) is a very
important one. Mexico, as an example,
is an important market for us. They put
in obesity laws two years ago because
42 / March 15, 2016 XMilling & Baking News

they thought Mexicans were not eating
healthy, so they put tax on both sweetened baked goods and beverages, and
they did get a decrease in consumption.
So (for) companies like mine, it was a
call to action because how were we
going to be able to help the Mexicans
consume these ingredients? We actually
had applications in the U.S. that were
part of our specialty products, and we
call this 'Save Money.'
"With our technology we're able to
substitute starch for oil and come up
with solutions for consumers that taste
good and have a good mouthfeel. Texture is very important - it's the new
taste. You know that consumers, no
matter what the price of the food, ...
want it to taste good."
Ms. Gordon said she expects the affordability issue to grow because of the
trends in Mexico and the United States.
"You have to have food ingredient
companies like Ingredion working with
food companies on those solutions using
our technology and innovation so we
come up with solutions that can make
the food affordable but that they taste
good and they have the right texture
... we need the consumers to demand
that," she explained. "As that happens
the food companies then want to serve
the unmet market need, and then the
ingredient companies like Ingredion are

Pam Johnson

there to serve the food companies."
From the producer perspective, Pam
Johnson, farmer and former president
of the National Corn Growers Association, said the focus should be on building
unique or innovative partnerships.
"We get into our silos, when we could
do so much more if we worked together," Ms. Johnson said. As an example,
she mentioned a visit to South America
featuring representatives of the N.C.G.A.
and the U.S. Grains Council to study
"the competition," and found U.S. farmers had a lot in common with the South
American farmers.
"If we could just take our hats off
once in a while and work pre-competitively on things, so we work on trade
issues, making sure grain can be moved
from areas of surplus, no matter where
in the world it is, to areas it's needed,"
she said.
At the university level, Kathryn Boor,
the Ronald P. Lynch Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at
Cornell University, said one area on her
mind is expanding the toolkit to more

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Pamela Hess

Ilene Gordon

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

ARLINGTON, VA. - Although there are
a number of challenges and issues that
the agriculture industry is addressing, the
list is long of others that require thought,
according to panelists participating in the
Feb. 25 Plenary Panel at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's 92nd annual Agricultural Outlook Forum at the Crystal
Gateway Marriott hotel in Arlington.
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack
asked each of the four panelists to provide some perspective on what challenges currently aren't being thought about
but should be generating debate.
Pamela Hess, executive director of the
Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food and
Agriculture, directed her comments toward healthy, affordable food.
"On the health perspective, we have
to make it possible for people who don't
have the money to afford quality food to
afford it," Ms. Hess said. She noted that

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Affordable, healthy food and
innovation need attention

Kathryn Boor

rapidly produce plant varieties that have
enhanced nutritional characteristics and
different agronomic characteristics and
that meet the needs of those in food processing. Ms. Boor said there is a need for
high-throughput phenotyping facilities,
which are facilities that enable researchers to rapidly evaluate the characteristics
of new plant varieties in a way that they
are able to measure and quickly pick the
ones that should be developed further
while eliminating the ones researchers
don't want to develop.
"We need those types of facilities in the
public sphere and in the public space so
that we can focus on the types of characteristics in those plant varieties that are
important to us nutritionally," she said.
Ms. Boor said these types of facilities
are vital because, as climate conditions
become more volatile, it will become
more important for researchers to develop plant varieties in a much shorter
time frame than the 20 years it currently
takes. MBN
bakingbusiness.com / world-grain.com

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Milling & Baking News - March 15, 2016

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