Farm programs here and in Europe face growing pressure for reform due to budget deficits and changing consumer trends, claimed speakers at the recent Transatlantic Council conference on the future of international ag policy. The press conference, held in Washington D.C's National Press Club last week, revealed how policies both here and abroad may need to be updated – and soon.

"The realities of fiscal policy need to be taken into account," says John Bruton (left), the former Irish Prime Minister and EU Ambassador to the United States. "If we continue with current patterns of spending on both sides of the Atlantic, by 2060 budget deficits will reach 450% of GDP. In Europe there are differences, but broadly speaking by 2030 if today's trend continues in the 27 European Union countries, by 2060 the EU debt-to-GDP ratio will be over 500%, even worse than the U.S."

Bruton noted that European farms are about 10 times smaller than U.S. farms on average. There are 13 million farmers in Europe compared to 2 million in the U.S.

"We are facing a growing population that needs to be fed, yet we're building on the best land here and in Europe," he says.

'Psychic rootedness' EU and U.S. Ag policy differ in one area: multifunctionality. "We see farming providing more than just cheap food," says Bruton. "For example, social goods, rural settings that people like to visit, a sense of psychic rootedness for people who feel they can identify with the land, especially in France. If all of rural France was to be converted to a very efficient farm with no hedges or anything, French people would feel rootless."

The Europeans promoting multifunctionality is ahead of the curve. Some day it may happen here. But the American consumer is already one or two generations removed from its agrarian heritage. If there is no sense of nostalgia or heritage, modern American consumer won't yearn for a connection to the land. And that will lead to more and more of what we have today: a lack of understanding and appreciation for modern agricultural practices.

"As society becomes more distanced from its roots, the more disengaged, the less realistic consumers have become about food," Bruton says. "We see the consequences of urbanization – people only thinking about their own reality and not having the wisdom that so many of our grandparents had, that if they came from the land, to understand the bigger reality."

You can see this lack of understanding in the so-called local food movement says Michel Petit, a Professor at the Institut Agronomique Méditerranéen de Montpellier in Europe. "There is some of that rural romantic agrarian trend in Europe too, he says, but we all need a reality check. "This trend is dangerous from the standpoint of food security," he says. "Global trade (not local food) will be needed to solve world food security issues.

"I sense a move against science and technology," he adds. "We have seen that in Europe much more than in the U.S. Until recently the FDA was fairly well trusted as an agency with trust for food safety; in Europe we don't have agencies with that level of trust. In Europe it is frozen in an anti-science position. In this new globalized world, with lots of communication between the U.S. and EU, what we have seen in Europe may happen in your society."

Maybe the Europeans and Americans need to rethink ag policy to include ag literacy for consumers. What do you think?

(Join us for the Farm Futures Management Summit. Go to www.farmfutures.com/summit for details).