“The future of Agriculture is not about blindly throwing increasingly expensive inputs and precious resources at our food, fiber, and now fuel production,” said Roger Underwood during this keynote presentation at the 2024 Agriculture Breakfast event. “The future of agriculture is borderless and global,” as he provided a worldly perspective to an industry that is ever evolving.
Roger C. Underwood is a native of Atlantic, Iowa, and lives in Ames. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Business from Iowa State University in November of 1980. Two years later, Roger and high school classmate, Jeff Becker, co-founded Becker Underwood in Ames to develop a specialty colorant to mix with Round Up herbicide to “mark” where the Round Up was sprayed. Company sales during its first year were $45,000, but the company grew steadily from there, developing new products.
Organic growth and several key acquisitions later, the company quickly became diversified and was working with key agricultural markets globally. Becker Underwood produced specialty seed colorants, seed coatings, yield enhancing biological inoculants, and multiple biological crop protection products. The company served many markets, including row crop seeds, general agriculture, horticultural, forestry, and aquatics, through companies such as Pioneer/DuPont, Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow, Land O Lakes, Van Diest Supply, and many others. The company eventually grew to $265 million in sales by 2012, from its ten offices across seven countries on five continents with 420 employees.
“Agriculture and food production is changing as I speak.”
In 1980, when Roger received his diploma, the world of agriculture was quite different than today. “Back then, agriculture production was more about how much of everything you could throw at producing it. Precision agriculture did not exist, and crop inputs were used much more inexactly than today.” He acknowledges that farms were expanding at the time, but the economics of farming were different.
“A tractor with a cab and radio was a luxury. A farmer owned his pickup eleven years before trading for a new one. That is what farmers knew then, so that is how they farmed and raised food then.”
Today, capital-intensive livestock production is highly specialized and concentrated to fewer and fewer farms. Livestock have moved from unpredictable and harsh outdoor conditions to controlled environments inside. He noted that although farm equipment transitioned from actual horses to machine horsepower over a hundred years ago, the growing size of farm equipment continues to function on rural farm roads and wooden bridges built for a different era.
“There was no internet, no web, no GPS satellites, no drones, and no software.” All of that has changed in a remarkably short amount of time.
Iowa continues to be a national and global leader in agriculture, ranking number one in production of hogs, corn, eggs, and soybeans. As a state and country, the impact of agriculture needs to include a global perspective, says Underwood. “By 2050, some futurists say we will need to feed nine billion people, not the seven billion we do today. Some predict twenty five percent of those nine billion will be under thirty years of age and many living in third- world countries with falling GDP’s.”
Underwood countered that statement with others claiming that, “we will only need to feed six and a half billion people in 2050 due to a falling global population trend, a lower global birth rate, and an increase in global poverty.”
Whether it’s nine or six and a half billion, Underwood emphasizes the need to effectively re-tool agriculture into an economically efficient system with new and emerging technologies that can impact a widespread target market. He believes that American-style capitalism, innovation, and ingenuity is apt to tackle the changing landscape.
Underwood studies agriculture globally and his perspective is formed by what he has seen first-hand outside of the United States. In his keynote, he pointed to his experiences in Africa and how food shortages continue to require people to live in a constant state of hunger. Today, 800 million people worldwide suffer daily from serious levels of hunger. “I saw some of that hunger recently in the slums of Soweto on the edges of Johannesburg and in the small rural villages across Namibia,” said Underwood. “Even when we grow more food, and even if governments subsidize food and agriculture dramatically, by 2030, there will still be 650 million undernourished people in the world. Globally, 21,000 people die daily from hunger or hunger-related causes.”
“Agriculture must be re-tooled, re-invented, re-capitalized, and re-engineered no matter if we have six and a half billion or nine billion mouths to feed.” The changes and disruptions, Underwood notes, will impact the way we raise our crops, grow our food, and the required infrastructure to support the change. Entrepreneurial and innovative minds can address this problem.
Underwood points to the positive impact that genetically modified foods can have on world hunger. “Do you know how many people get sick or die daily from eating genetically modified foods?” asks Underwood. “Zero. Not one single person. But almost 1,000 people an hour are dying from lack of food.”
Genetically modified foods, known as GMOs, have risen in prominence, but have also received increasing public interest regarding their safety, specifically to human health. There are now many research studies comparing the effects of traditional food to genetically modified food across industry-leading journals. However, the power of long-term impact studies is not there yet.
GMO foods are banned in Europe, a continent that benefits from an agricultural ecosystem that can support their population. For the countries of Africa, whose main agricultural export is to Europe, the situation is more dire. GMO crops are banned by default in a continent that is starving and thirsty.
“Science, innovation, and innovative technology can solve hunger,” said Underwood, again noting that much of the continent of Africa would benefit from a proven, agricultural technology investment. “Agriculture needs sound science, focused research, investment in land grant research universities such as Iowa State, private public partnerships, and yes, capitalism to solve the vexing problems of efficiently producing more food and optimizing our agriculture system.”
What will these technology changes look like? Underwood offers some examples.
“There will be sophisticated tree fruit and vegetable picking robots that work 24 hours a day using artificial intelligence color and size recognition technology guided by monitoring drones flying overhead managing the process.” Autonomous tractors, herd management drones on ranches that monitor animal sickness, and solar powered moisture-monitored irrigation systems are just the start. Artificial intelligence will be the norm. “Self-peeling potatoes whose skins just dissolve away when cooked,” are already available.
The agriculture of tomorrow is already here in many ways and Underwood points to several examples across the region, including the work at Iowa State University, Iowa State University Research Park, and several private companies.
In 2012, Becker Underwood was sold to BASF Chemical Company of Germany for $1.02 billion dollars. By then, the two co-founders, Jeff and Roger, had moved into private equity investing in agriculture. More recently for Underwood, one of those companies was Pivot Bio, a Berkley, California company that now has space in the Iowa State University Research Park.
“Everyone knows that nitrogen is a necessary component of our global food system,” said Underwood. “Nitrogen fuels photosynthesis, which makes it the basis of the DNA and proteins. Plants cannot grow without Nitrogen.” But when Nitrogen is used incorrectly or wastefully, it can be a pollutant in our air. Pivot Bio has solved that problem
for farmers.
Pivot Bio came to Ames and established its second largest operation, far away from the company headquarters on the west coast. The $190 billion global nitrogen industry will be disrupted in a positive way with fingerprints from Ames, Iowa. Why Ames for Pivot Bio? The answer is easy for Underwood to answer. “Ames is the center of grain production in North America, central to so many growers and potential customers and employees.”
Pivot Bio is just one example of how the many coming changes to agriculture create perfect openings for regional businesses. Our area is bustling with talent thanks to the innovative work at Iowa State University.
Iowa State University Research Park tenants continue to drive value to the region. Underwood points to Sukup Manufacturing developing and manufacturing new and more energy efficient ways to dry and store grain for the global market. Kent Corporation is developing healthier foods, seasonings, deserts, animal feeds, and proteins from its deeply collaborative labs in Ames. John Deere has its global sprayer research center in Ames. Dryland Genetics has developed new varieties of the most water efficient grain in the world.
“All right here from Ames, Iowa,” reinforcing the global impact of Iowa State University.
“Man, armed with science and technology, will fuss with plant and animal genetics, DNA, and engineer a workable outcome for a changing world. Tomorrow is already happening right here in Ames, today.” This is the future of agriculture according to Roger C. Underwood.
