Going around the table and having each person say what they were thankful for was a Thanksgiving tradition at my extended family gatherings growing up. As a child the answers usually were friends, family, toys and food, especially food. We were, after all, waiting to dig into a delicious spread that always included turkey and all the fixings. As an adult I now have more grown up answers to the What are you thankful for? question. Several that come to mind are: good health, safety on the roads, safety on the farm especially during the busy harvest season, the opportunity to travel around the world, and the opportunity to make new friends through social media that I share common interests with. But even with all these new answers, I still find myself being thankful for food. Perhaps this is because while I sit around the Thanksgiving table filling my plate with delicious nourishment, there are so many people around the world who are staring at empty plates.
So what can we do about this besides being thankful for our food? The need to produce more food has garnered much press lately, both in agricultural and mainstream media. While government, ag companies and others all have a role to play in helping feed nine billion people by 2050, it’s our farmers who will play the most important role as the producers of this food. While this may seem next to impossible, I have no doubt that our farmers are up to the challenge.
So I’m going to suggest we take it one step further this Thanksgiving and let’s also be thankful for our farmers who produce the food that not only feeds us here in North America but also people around the world. Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian friends!
Rural Route Ramblings 
happy thanksgiving teresa! i hope that you have a wonderful dinner and day spent with family.
Happy Thanksgiving! I do want to take mild issue with the idea that producing more is the solution to growing population and hunger, though. Sadly, we’ve shown ourselves unable to to distribute food to those who need it most year after year for decades. We produce plenty of calories for everyone in the world: we cannot deliver either the calories or nutrients to each specific person. (There’s also the question of whether we produce all the nutrients needed, and I think we probably do not produce enough of the needed micronutrients.) ::: steps off bandbox::::
Thanks for reading and commenting, GroundCherry! You make a valid point – yes, we do need to do a better job of distributing food to those who need it most.