Actor and author Nick Offerman is in central Iowa on Wednesday, encouraging farmers and consumers alike to support regenerative agriculture as demand for food continues to grow.
Offerman is among the speakers at the three-day Borlaug International Dialogue, which is bringing together more than 1,200 leaders from more than 65 countries as the Des Moines-based World Food Prize marks its 40th anniversary.
Offerman offered a frank assessment of the environmental picture. Offerman says, “Human civilization will benefit from having more stewards of the land not less.”
Offerman, who is an accomplished woodworker and widely known for his role as Ron Swanson on the NBC program “Parks and Recreation,” says the current system supports industrial agriculture.
“Which organically is using soil to produce processed food ingredients instead of producing food you can eat,” he says.
Offerman has produced two documentaries about regenerative agriculture: “Look & See,” and “A Fork In The Road.” He says farmers will be essential to addressing global hunger, but long-term food production depends on maintaining healthy and productive land.
“The great thing about farmers is that they are stewards of the land,” he says. “They are not extracting a product from the land from a distance. They are making their living from the health of the ecosystem.”
Offerman says farmers and ranchers have an opportunity to strengthen both food production and natural resources.
