I was recently asked to be part of the Mesilla Valley Economic Development Summit held in Las Cruces. Prior to the meeting, the organizers solicited economic development priorities from the citizenry of the valley.

When I reviewed the survey responses, I was pleased that a third of the respondents specifically mentioned agriculture. Still, I went to the summit to assure that agriculture took its rightful place in the discussion of economic development.

Worldwide, demand for agricultural products is pretty much assured. Eating has continued to stay in style throughout recorded history and is expected to remain popular into the foreseeable future.

In the next 20 to 25 years, worldwide demand for food is expected to double. And when you look at the past 25 years, what has happened is quite remarkable. Despite warnings from population experts that we were on the verge of famines of unbelievable proportions and that feeding 6 billion people was not possible, we not only feed 6 billion people, but the average daily intake per person has risen almost 400 calories.

What we have in a free global economy is not only more people eating, but also more affluent people eating. They want more packaged products, convenience meals and protein-laden foods. To meet these needs and desires, the United States is, to borrow a phrase from one agribusiness giant, the supermarket to the world.

These global trends have been borne out in our region, too. Our neighbor to the south, Mexico, showed tremendous growth in demand for American food products prior to the peso's major devaluation and in the wake of opening the economy to more international participation. We should expect the demand for American food products to grow with the health of the Mexican economy.

Doña Ana County has long been the premier agricultural region in New Mexico, always ranking first or second among counties in value of products sold off the farm. Those products were valued at $117 million in 1980 and at $250 million in 1997. But that is only a part of the story.

Doña Ana County has shown real and positive economic change due to agriculture. The county has many long-established vegetable-, cotton- and pecan-handling facilities. But during the past few years, the industry has added a spice plant, a grain mill, a cheese plant and a color extraction facility associated with our chile industry. Many small businesses process and sell local farm products, and much of our local restaurant scene centers on our farm products.

As Doña Ana County citizens look to the future and seek economic development partners, they should ask themselves what industries can come to this valley and already have local support for research and development. That is exactly what NMSU's Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service offer agribusiness. We are funded through public and private sources to facilitate technology transfer to the agriculture industry.

Private agribusiness firms that come into this valley can leverage the resources of the institution to help the industry. In short, there are few industries in the Mesilla Valley that can find better support than agribusiness.

Agriculture has been a stable touchstone, and we must make sure to maintain it in the years to come.