AGree, the foundation-financed collaborative initiative on agriculture that includes all types of agricultural leaders, has reached consensus to tackle four key policy areas but on genetic modification has concluded it can only be a forum for discussion.

After three years of meetings with more than a thousand agricultural leaders, AGree held an event this week to launch the initiatives as a roadmap for action, which may include advocating for policy change, promoting private sector action or encouraging demonstration projects.

The National Geographic Society hosted the Tuesday event because the society wants to encourage more discussion on food and agricultural policy among the general public and encourage Americans to influence public policy on food, said Dennis Dimick, the executive environment editor at National Geographic, who chaired a panel discussion at the event.

To pursue those goals, National Geographic has recently published a magazine issue on food, mounted an exhibit on food production at its Washington headquarters and started television programming on “The Story of Food.”

AGree’s leaders, which range from organic farmers and conservation activists to conventional farmers and agribusiness executives, said they had reached consensus on recommendations on the following topics:

• Working Landscapes: Achieving Productivity, Profitability, and Environmental Outcomes
• Food & Nutrition: Cultivating Healthy Communities
• International Development: Promoting Development through Food and Agriculture
• Immigration Reform: Achieving a Stable, Legal Workforce

AGree also will work on four other initiatives: research and innovation, risk management, local food, and the next generation of farmers.

AGree has co-chairs, an advisory committee and a research committee. During the event, people associated with AGree talked about the issues that are the most important to them.

Greg Page, executive chairman of Cargill, said his company “believes in comparative advantage” — growing food in “the best place it should be grown” and “trust-based free trade,” but he added that his number one issue in Africa is property rights. If farmers had more certainty of rights, there would be more investment and higher productivity, he said.

Amim Steel, founder of the Real Food Challenge, a campaign to direct $1 billion of college food purchases towards local, fair, sustainable and humane sources, said his concern is that international development aid projects may have unintended consequence.

He also said that the decision process in development should be more “inclusive.” Steel said that La Via Campesina, an international organization of farmers, should be part of development decision-making.

Betti Wiggins, the nutrition director in the Detroit Public Schools, said her concern is finding a way to use fresh fruit that is not cosmetically perfect enough to be sold in grocery stores. Wiggins said that if school food service workers cut it up and put it in jello “it has the same nutritive value.”

But in answer to a question from the audience, Deb Atwood, the executive director of AGree, acknowledged that the group had not been able to reach consensus on genetic modification, also known as genetic engineering.

“We do not have a dogma in that fight,” Atwood said. But the group had agreed, she said, “to have the platform for respectful exchange that includes science and values. It is science plus.”

Jim Moseley, an Indiana farmer who is a former Agriculture deputy secretary and an AGree cochair, said the three-year effort had shown that “maybe we can solve these problems after all.”

“There is an uneasiness out there among farmers and the public,” Moseley said. “What we are trying to do here is address that anxiety.”

▪ AGree — Summaries of Consensus Recommendations
▪ National Geographic — The Future of Food