FERRIDAY — Louisiana Commissioner of Agriculture and Forestry Mike Strain said he knows it’s been a tough couple of years for Louisiana agriculture, but he sees a bright future.

Strain was the guest speaker Thursday at the Ferriday Rotary Club’s weekly meeting.

Overall agriculture production was down 13 percent in Louisiana, making a $1.3 billion loss, but those losses are directly proportional to losses incurred by storms and floods, Strain said.

Likewise, Strain said that the worldwide recession has had an impact.

“Forestry is down $800 million,” he said. “We are not building houses, we are not buying paper.”

Strain said that watching food trends can tell you a lot about where the economy is headed, and he said he knew the worldwide economic situation was about to turn sour when consumption of certain foods started to decrease.

“When chicken — the least expensive source of protein — when you see it going down, you know there’s a problem,” he said.

But things seem to be reaching a steady state, and Strain said he expects to see a 3 to 10 percent increase in cotton production in the United States.

“That’s because other countries are not raising it,” he said. “Other countries are now raising beans and corn — they are raising food.”

Even as other countries are picking up food production, Strain said the U.S. will have to double its food production by 2030.

And this, coupled with rising demand for renewable energy, is what gives him hope for the future of Louisiana agriculture, Strain said.

“I am very bullish about what we can do in agriculture, because we have the land,” he said.

Approximately 85 percent of the land surface in Louisiana is dedicated to agriculture or forestry, he said.

There have been past mistakes when it comes to producing biofuel, including an emphasis on corn-based ethanol that eventually crashed the corn market, Strain said.

But new advances in biofuel technology have shown how some products, like sugarcane-based biofuel, can be much more efficient than corn-based ethanol, he said.

And what’s great about some of the new technology is that it can utilize parts of plants that were previously considered waste or were left in the fields, Strain said.

“Instead of waste, there is all of this product we can turn into electricity or plastic,” he said.

“Overall, I think we have a tremendous opportunity ahead of us.”