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Published: 8/17/2012 | Updated: 6/17/2013
By DEBORAH GERTZ HUSAR
Herald-Whig Staff Writer
Planting seeds of knowledge about other countries can be just as important for U.S. agriculture as growing crops. "The value is for us to break outside of our comfort zone," Quincyan Sara Fernandez said. "Living in a smaller community in West-Central Illinois, sometimes we get into our little box and think everything we do or say or experience affects or has an impact on our little box. It's harder to see how different choices and changes can actually help us in our little box. A much bigger picture view of the world, specifically China and India, can have a direct positive impact on Quincy, West-Central Illinois and the Tri-State area." The Illinois Agricultural Leadership Program's international travel seminar earlier this year took Fernandez, Andy Sprague of Kinderhook and the rest of the Class of 2012 to China and India. IALP, a leadership education program offered by the Illinois Agricultural Leadership Foundation, provides 14 seminars covering current social, political and economic issues in the agricultural industry. The trip wasn't meant to be a vacation. Instead, the seminar offered a chance to learn more about agriculture on a global scale through meetings, tours and panel discussions focused on supply and value chain issues. "The discussions you have with other producers and other members of the greater ag family really give you a lot of tools and deeper perspective of what the opportunities are. It made a lot of us more optimistic. There's definitely a market for our product if we can get along politically," said Sprague, who owns Kinderhook Lodge and is involved with his family's 4,000-acre farming operation. "These are probably the two countries that are going to most influence the rest of our lives globally simply because of that huge population of consumers," he said. "We're talking about being in the business of producing food and the importance that technology plays in that. Most of the world's future increase in food production is going to come from smarter seed and better use of pesticides and fertilizer." Trade opportunities loom large for American farmers. The top U.S. export to China is soybeans, used for livestock feed and cooking oil. "Right here in West-Central Illinois, one in every four rows goes to China. As we live our non-agrarian lifestyle in the U.S., it gives perspective on how absolutely important ag is to each and every one of us," Fernandez said. With an ADM facility in Quincy, "it's not too far-reaching to say when farmers in this area take soybeans to ADM, they're put on barges to New Orleans and put on ocean liners straight to China." Seeing the size of the farms, close to just five acres in China, and how hundreds of millions of people in the countries still do field work by hand was an education in itself. Someone who farms a tiny field and lives in a hut can't comprehend how one family can farm 5,000 acres thanks to mechanization, and at the same time, Americans can't comprehend areas in India the size of Illinois being home to almost 250 million residents. "It's sensory overload. You've got everything from buses and Bentleys to semis on a road to somebody with a family of five on a moped and somebody herding cows," Sprague said. The trips also build awareness of other global differences including how the harvest is handled. The U.S. processes about 70 to 80 percent of its production, but "2 or 3 percent of food produced in India is processed. What you produce and what you harvest has to be consumed. It will spoil," Fernandez said. India also is a vegetarian nation, relying on protein from dairy products and eggs instead of beef and poultry. "What might help farmers in India from West-Central Illinois will be more opportunities to get soybeans over there because of the growing population and education going over there and helping them understand how to improve their production through genetics and farmer exchange programs," she said. The wider world view, gained through the IALP experience, "gives you a deeper sense of obligation, a real desire to continue serving and find the things that you can most positively impact in your community, church, industry," Sprague said. "It equips the participants with a new set of skills in dealing with adversity in their business, communication skills with employer or employees and different types of strategic planning." -- dhusar@whig.com/221-3379
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