Agriculture A Growing Economic Engine
SUMMIT TO ADDRESS VITAL LINK IN STATE’S FUTURE GROWTH
How can S.C. agriculture compete in a global economy where food and energy will compete for the same resources?
Energy markets present a huge opportunity for S.C. farmers. That opportunity will be one of the topics when more than 200 S.C. farmers, agribusiness, business and government leaders gather in Charleston at the S.C. Agricultural Summit. Lester R. Brown, one of the world’s foremost environmentalists is the founder of the Earth Policy Institute. His book, “Plan B 2.0,” helped prompt Darla Moore, the founder of the Palmetto Institute, and her husband, Richard Rainwater, to push for convening the summit.
Farmers can grow existing crops, such as corn and soybeans, for production of ethanol and biodiesel fuel. But they also can look to alternative crops, which can be used to make ethanol. In 1900, South Carolina’s population was a little more than 1 million people. Nearly 90 percent of those people lived and worked on farms. By some measures, agribusiness is still the second-largest industry in the state - accounting for an annual impact of $33.4 billion and providing more than 640,000 jobs.
The Palmetto Institute directed by Jim Fields is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit research and educational organization focused on growing the state’s economy. The Institute wants to work with other groups around the state that already are focused on helping agriculture. The institute is “not trying to displace anybody,” Fields said. “We are just trying to say let’s use this to help them” start thinking globally about agriculture.
Those involved in S.C. agriculture need to think of new ways of doing things, everything from better marketing of products to growing alternative crops for energy, to becoming part of the growing “carbon market” movement. Another new way to look at agriculture is the concept of a “carbon market” through which farmers actually make money by using practices that cut greenhouse gas emissions and slow climate change. Farmers agree to certain green practices that will reduce emissions.
Farmers can agree to use no-till cultivation systems, invest in methane digesters for liquid manure, use compost systems or produce dedicated biofuel crops. “We’ve got to understand,” Fields said, “that agribusiness is an economic engine in our state that we can grow dramatically if we take the right steps and make the right moves.”