Chris Policinski, president and CEO, Land O’Lakes

Chris Policinski
President and CEO, Land O’Lakes

One of the things that we wouldn’t have envisioned all that long ago that’s a reality now is introducing satellite imagery to map the biomass of individual farms. That sounds pretty space age but it’s not. We can go to that farmer and say, “In that section of your land that doesn’t grow well in wet years, here’s ten years of history and this year looks like it’s going to be a wet year. Here’s how you ought to optimize your crop inputs to grow more and to do it in a more sustainable way.”

(Jeffrey MacMillan/For The Washington Post) - Chris Policinski

More on this Story

• In the U.S., there’s a lot of food being sent to landfills
• How will we feed 9 billion people?
• A kind of Peace Corps to help American kids eat healthier
• Planting fresh produce in D.C.’s ‘food deserts’

View all Items in this Story

• Food statistics
• An excerpt from Dan Glickman
• An excerpt from Jon Tester
• An excerpt from Jason Clay
• An excerpt from Samuel Allen
• Excerpt from Chris Policinski
• An excerpt from Mike McCloskey
• An excerpt from Liz Schrayer
• An excerpt from Sonny Ramaswamy
• An excerpt from Lauren Bush Lauren

We’ve tripled corn yields, we’ve tripled wheat yields, we’ve doubled soy yields. Milk production per cow is up three times. It’s an amazing story that needs to continue. A hundred percent of the corn crop in this country, 88 percent of the soybean crop is biotech. It’s not a new technology. It’s tested; it’s regulated; it’s proven. And the impact is amazing, and the most productive farms versus the generation and a half ago, we’re growing six-and-a-half times more corn on 13 percent fewer acres.