More than 7 billion people live on planet Earth and by 2050 that number is projected to swell to 9 billion. Can they all be fed?

That was a central issue examined in a new Ranch Management class called Global Food Production and Distribution that was offered in the fall. It was the first time a Ranch Management class was open to all undergraduates, and was team-taught by the entire Ranch Management faculty.

“It was really fun from our standpoint because we got to interact with people outside our program,” said Jeff Geider, director of the Ranch Management Institute. He said the class of 29 students included a broad range of majors from business to psychology.

“They were all extremely bright and fun to work with,” he added. “It was a little out of their comfort zone because we weren’t talking about production agriculture per se, although we did some of that, but it was really a global awareness class looking at policy. The whole emphasis was how to develop food production and distribution policy for the triple bottom line — people, profit, planet.”

For the final exam, students were assigned a particular country and had to find a solution to their food production challenges.

Ranch Management hopes to offer the class again in the fall and is looking at adding a second semester class. Geider says it’s an example of ways the program is expanding its reach. In recent years the Institute has launched exchange global programs in both Brazil and, more recently Panama.

“The bottom line is we’re exchanging information,” Geider said. “We’re exchanging technologies, we’re learning and teaching each other how to produce more with less, using our water better, using our soils better, using our grasses better and being more sustainable in our approach to agricultural production.”

On the Web:
Ranch Management — ranch.tcu.edu