Lugar addresses today's agricultural issues

Last Sunday at McNutt Formal Lounge Senator Richard Lugar spoke to a diverse crowd of high school students and teachers from around the world about issues facing agriculture today.\n"Farming in America is a precarious business and mildly profitable at best," Lugar said.\nThe Republican senator from Indiana was speaking to participants in the IU Center for Global Change's summer institutes. The center is currently hosting three different institutes, The International Summer Institute for High School Students; the International Studies Summer Institute for grades 7-12 teachers; and International Agriculture Education institute for grades 9-12 teachers. The institutes will house 50 high school students and 30 teachers from 15 states and 14 countries for two weeks.\n"He is the minority leader of agriculture in the Senate; he also has influence in foreign policy," said Ken Steuer, associate director of the center for global change at IU and director of the summer institute. "We try to provide a range of prospectives. He represents a liberal economic approach to economic issues."\nIn his hour long speech, Lugar, who is responsible for his family farm, discussed the many changes in farming since his father's days of farming during the Great Depression. \nHe touched briefly on many subjects including the new farming bill, the increased surpluses of food, increased agriculture productivity, the problems of feeding the world, the advantages of GMOs (genetically modified organisms), free trade of agricultural products and the need for less waste of food surpluses. \n"By and large the productivity of American agriculture has increased by threefold since the 1930s," Lugar said. \nHe credits pesticides, science, planting rows closer together and GMOs for these developments. "The only way everyone in the world can have minimal nutrition is by breakthroughs," he said.\nHe then commented on such breakthroughs as genetically modified plants that are protected from disease and pests. He said genetically modified produce makes up 74 percent of soybeans, 25 percent of corn and 60 percent of soybeans. He also expressed his agitation at European countries for banning GMO food.\n"European parliament said it won't buy half of one percent of GMO food. They believe we are tampering with nature. They see it as an emotionally wrought poisoning of a few crops that were relatively pure before. They see it as American imperialism," Lugar said.\n"I think it is a lot of old wives tales and politically motivated by pleas of their constituents," he said.\nLugar not only expressed his concern for feeding people abroad but also a concern for filling food banks in the U.S. as well.\n"(There are) more people coming to food banks and food pantries than ever before. Supermarkets give their surplus and get a tax deduction. Deductions should be given to farmers and restaurants for contributing to surpluses to food banks. Only one percent of surplus food gets to the food banks. For lack of organization and transportation lots of food is wasted," Lugar said.\nLugar, who encouraged the audience to embrace free trade, also noted that to be successful in today's competitive modern market farmers must pay attention to more than weather and science.\n"Whether they are young or old, they (farmers) must understand the best of sciences and they must have an understanding of what is happening in other countries," Lugar said.\nAfter the senator spoke, Chancellor Sharon Brehm thanked him for coming to speak.\n"You may be one of the most marvelous senators in the Senate but I think that you are a college professor in your heart," Brehm said.\nWhile at the international institute, students and teachers study the topics of international politics, global environmental change, populations at risk, and international economics and trade.\n"It exposes students to college education, they can earn college credit for attending and it helps teachers add an international component to the curriculum," said Steuer.\nChristine Lu, a high school student from Taiwan, decided to come to the institute after seeing it on the Internet. \n"I am expecting to learn more about other cultures and the environment and discuss about those problems more in-depth than what I have learned in school"