U.S.-German Forum Future Agriculture Extended 2024-2027
Aspen Germany is pleased to announce the extension of the U.S.-German Forum Future Agriculture for another three years, supported by the Transatlantic Program of the Federal Republic of Germany, funded by the European Recovery Program (ERP) of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK). The project was inaugurated in 2022 by the Aspen Institute Germany with project partner, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The U.S.-German Forum Future Agriculture endeavors to foster transatlantic discourse between the United States and Germany on shared challenges confronting their agriculture sectors and rural regions and point toward a more sustainable agricultural future. The Forum underscores the pivotal role of agriculture in guaranteeing food security, the economic development of rural communities, and advancing broader social and political cohesion between rural and urban regions.
The initial two-year phase (2022-2024) comprised two, year-long exchanges, each involving 16 participants, who convened for both virtual and in-person sessions. These exchanges focused on advancing climate-informed arable agriculture and the digital transformation of beef and dairy farming respectively, with participants selected from regions in both countries that exhibit similar social and geographical characteristics: eastern Germany and the U.S. Corn Belt in the first year, and northern Germany and the U.S. northeast in the second.
After a successful initial two years, the project will be extended from 2024–2027, comprising three additional cohorts of 16 farmers and other agricultural stakeholders each. In 2025, the project will look at land use conflicts between renewable energy and food production, meeting in both Sachsen Anhalt, Germany and Colorado, United States. In 2026, the project will focus on animal health and welfare with poultry and pig farmers meeting in Lower Saxony, Germany and North Carolina, United States. In its final year in 2027, the core topical focus will be the agricultural labor market in the fruit and vegetable industries, meeting in North Rhine-Westphalia and California, United States.
In keeping with the program’s core format, active farmers and key stakeholders will convene virtually and in person to deliberate on pressing issues impacting their sectors and communities, crafting policy recommendations at both national and international levels, and learning from best practices in both countries.
