Keynote: Micro Beef 4C Summit, Sonoma County – Agriculture 2020: Innovation, Growth and Opportunity

Jim Carroll delivered the keynote address at the inaugural 4C Summit organized by Micro Beef Technologies in Sonoma County, California in April 2011 — a private leadership event described as “an advanced leadership development curriculum unlike any other ever offered in animal agriculture,” convening approximately 100 of the top cattle, stockyard, and feedlot operators in the United States. Attendees represented some of the largest operations in the American cattle industry — individual ranches with upwards of 30,000 to 50,000 head and billion-dollar revenue footprints — gathered to explore the future of their industry with candor and strategic depth. Carroll’s keynote, “Agriculture 2020: Innovation, Growth and Opportunity,” challenged this elite group of agricultural leaders to engage with the structural transformation of global food production: doubling food supply to feed a 9-billion-person planet, per capita meat consumption growth across emerging markets, and the data-driven, precision agriculture revolution that would define the sector’s future. The session used live audience polling via text message to surface the “innovation killers” holding the industry back — and Carroll’s challenge to tackle them head-on.