Potato conference speaker praises ag

Future 'has never been better'

MOSES LAKE - The conference center in Big Bend Community College's ATEC building was full Wednesday morning as potato industry members heard about the future of agriculture.

The 2008 Washington State Potato Conference and Trade Show's keynote speaker Jay Lehr has more than 54 years of agriculture experience, published hundreds of articles on environmental issues and spoken before Congress on the matter.

Before taking the stage, Lehr was the star of a humorous video shown to the audience in which he talked to random people in San Francisco about the importance of farming, even going as far as walking alongside vehicles and speaking to the drivers. He later told the audience he did that for 20 minutes before police intervened.

Throughout his speech, Lehr encouraged his listeners to speak to people about the need for farming and the benefits it provides.

He does his part to spread good news about farming through his wardrobe.

"I wear a farm tie everywhere I go. I have lots of farm ties and wherever I go people say, 'Gee, that's an interesting tie.' That's an icebreaker. They will then get three minutes of agricultural education whether they like it or not," he said, eliciting laughter from the crowd.

Lehr began by recounting some childhood memories he has of eating potatoes and went on to stress the importance of carbohydrates.

"We need to be eating at least 40 to 50 percent of our calories from carbohydrates and potatoes are an excellent source," he said.

Lehr said farming was more respected in his youth and concerns raised over the years about pesticides and other chemicals contributed to the change in public opinion of the industry.

Farmers are their own environmental stewards, he said. It's not in a farmer's interest to contaminate their soil or waste water, he said.

"Every day is Earth Day on the farm," he said. "We have every incentive to be efficient in the use of everything."

He said chemical traces are measured in the parts per trillion, which is the ratio of one second to 32,000 years. Lehr then took a sip from his water bottle, saying there was probably a molecule of every chemical in it, to demonstrate how negligible the trace amounts are.

Lehr said there's a lot of bad publicity in the media about chemicals used in farming, but said a lot of good comes from industry. Most of the negative stories come from misinformation, which he said will go away eventually.

"I think in 10 years we'll beat down all the false information," Lehr said.

Scientific advancements, he said, continue to positively affect the industry and the population.

"The food supply will be increased through biotechnology," he said.

In regards to sustainable farms, he said there are not "fly by night farmers" and it's in every farmer's interest to work toward sustainability.

"I want to see every farm in America succeed," he said.

He said the number of farms is strong and not declining.

The biggest obstacle in the industry is trade barriers, but barriers won't always be in place, he said.

"The future for agriculture has never been better," Lehr said.