Meeting the challenge of providing the world’s food, feed, fiber and, especially, fuel is what’s facing the American farmer today, and it’s part of a competition the Farm Foundation is sponsoring.

Last December, the Farm Foundation put out a report entitled The 30-Year Challenge: Agriculture’s Strategic Role in Feeding and Fueling a Growing World, where the group outlined six challenge areas facing American farmers: global financial markets and recession; global food security; global energy security; climate change; competition for natural resources; and global economic development (see my posts on Domestic Fuel and AgWired.com). To help come up with solutions, earlier this spring the Farm Foundation came up with a competition, which will hand out cash prizes totaling $20,000 and has a looming deadline of June 1, 2009:

“Agriculture globally faces the challenge of how to provide food to a world that is expected to have 9 billion people by 2040,” says Farm Foundation President Neil Conklin. “This challenge exists at the same time that we are already seeing pressures on global resources, as well as increased demand for agriculture to provide not only food, but feed, fiber and fuel.

“It is not clear that today’s public policies-designed to deal with issues of the last century-provide appropriate tools and incentives to address the challenges of the next 30 years,” Conklin continues. “Farm Foundation is offering this competition as a catalyst for innovative ideas and approaches.”

For more information, check the Farm Foundation’s 30-Year Challenge Web site.