The future of food security might be found in Plant City.
Ben Carson, a Plant City native, has been selected as one of 100 people from around the world to participate in Bayer Corp. Crop Science’s 2017 Youth Ag-Summit, themed “Feeding a Hungry World.” Carson will join four other Americans as part of the conference’s U.S. delegation, joining 95 other young adults from 49 countries.
The conference, to be held in October in Brussels, Belgium, will be Bayer’s third Youth Ag-Summit. The first was held in Canada in 2013, then again in Australia in 2015. The bi-annual conference brings together adults ages 18 through 25 to discuss issues relating to the future of agriculture. Through the conference, Bayer hopes to bring together talented young minds who can keep the agriculture industry innovative and forward-thinking in addressing issues like world hunger, Casey Allen, a spokesman for Bayer Corp.'s Crop Science division, said. The conferences participants, he said, can then bring ideas from the conference back to their communities.
In 2011, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations released a report stating that food production would need to increase by 70% to sustain an expected population of about 9 billion people by 2050. This year’s conference addresses the United Nation’s sustainable development goals of ending hunger, achieving food security and promoting sustainable agriculture, Allen said.
“Addressing the challenge of feeding a growing population, you need that continual pipeline of talent driving the industry and driving innovation,” he said. “It’s important to be able to bring in a younger generation and show them agriculture is a great place to be, not just these folks involved in the summit, but their entire communities.”
Carson, 21, grew up surrounded by agriculture. His grandfather, W.B. “Hap” Carson, is the founder of Chemical Dynamics, a Plant City-based liquid fertilizer company. Carson, a finance and marketing major at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala., said he hopes to use his business knowledge and experience at the conference to provide management consulting services to agricultural businesses to boost economic development within agricultural communities around the country.
“I’m looking forward to hearing from great minds on agriculture and learning as much as I possibly can about agriculture around the world,” Carson said. “I want to go in there like a sponge and soak up as much as I can. Im only 21. I know I still have so much to learn about the agriculture industry. I want to focus my career on making agricultural businesses thrive, because feeding these companies means feeding our future.”
Carson said he found out about the conference from his brother, Nathan, who attended in 2013. To be selected, Carson had to write an essay about proposed solutions to a global hunger crisis, incorporating the U.N’s sustainable development goals. Carson said growing up around the citrus industry inspired him to write about citrus greening, particularly about successful studies that have used genetic material from spinach plants to combat greening.
“Ben Carson’s passion and dedication to finding a solution to a disease that threatens the global citrus industry is a great example of the power of youth leadership,” National 4-H Council President and Chief Executive Officer Jennifer Sirangelo said. “I’m excited that Ben and other young people from across the globe will have the opportunity to participate in the 2017 Youth Ag-Summit to further engage and build sustainable solutions for global food production.”
Sirangelo was one of six judges from the agriculture industry who gathered to select the five-member U.S. delegation from a pool of more than 60 applicants. Globally, there were more than 1,000 applicants, Allen said.
The chance to represent Plant City’s agricultural community is one Carson said he doesn’t take lightly.
“It’s a great honor,” he said. “I get to represent my hometown in Plant City, my school in Samford and the United States in general. I wouldn’t be here without my parents and my background in agriculture. I wouldn’t be here without the community and what the Plant City community and agriculture has provided me. I want to be able to represent everyone who’s given me this opportunity. I hope to take this opportunity and invest back into the world in a way I could not do before.”