Faegre Baker Daniels agribusiness litigator, Mark Carpenter, attended the recent 2012 International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) Dairy Forum.  Mark heads up the firm’s dairy segment within its Food & Agriculture Industry Group. This event was attended by industry leaders including many business representatives from major dairy companies. The firm is an active member of IDFA and was one of the sponsors of the Forum. 

Feeding the growing world population was a central topic of the conference.  Former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman stressed the need for more public investment in research and development in the food sector.  With much of the population growth in the coming decades expected to occur in China and India, Anil Gupta and Haiyan Wang of the China India Institute spoke about “Getting China and India Right,” a presentation discussing the business climate in those two countries, with positive and negative examples in the recent past from U.S. businesses who have attempted to establish a presence in China or India.

The conference also took a close look at sustainability issues, particularly the need to produce more dairy products for a larger population without using substantially more land or water.  The closely related subject of consumer acceptance of production-increasing technology was addressed during multiple panels.