While serving on the United Soybean Board nearly 15 years ago, I along with others formed the US Farmer and Rancher Alliance. (FRA) Those of us serving in leadership positions both farm and agriculture      industry saw a need to reach those consuming the food we produces. One of first things the Alliance did was hold food dialogues across the country. In those days most discussion was focused on GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms). One of the big things to come out of these public discussion was consumers were not as concerned about the technology as they were about the unknown.

The International Food Information Council (IFIC) ( they are a 501c3 organization of food and agriculture companies and agriculture organizations) released data in partnership with the International Association for Food Protection  IAFP) from their 2025 IFIC FOOD & Health Survey. Now in its 20th year The IFIC Food & Health Survey captures the beliefs, behaviors and attitudes of 3000 US adults 18 to 80 years old.

The survey data shows only 11% of respondents are very Confident in the safety of the US food supply. Only 55% say they are confident or somewhat Confident in the safety of US food supply.  This is a 70% drop from 2023 when confidents was 62%.

Why this big drop in only 2 years?  I think it goes back to what we saw 15 years ago consumers hear all the negativities and very little about the benefits from new technology.  This is not to say we should not take a close look at our food supply from the seed to the dinner table.

I think it might be time for another set of Food dialogs across America to find out just why the loss of confidences in our food.  Our commodity organization and agriculture business might look at how we can inform the consumer of why we do certain things and why it is safe.

This is part of the reason I wrote the book “Your Food- My Adventure. You can read how food production has changed over the last 75 years and see the dollars contributed by farmers to each commodity organization to help insurance we have a safe and abundant food supply.   2017 commodity figures are listed in the book, in 2024 figures show over $1. 250,000,000  yes around one and a quarter billion is pooled my farmers to insure a safe  and abundant food supply.