October 10, 2011
Food Security in an Era of Price Volatility and Climate Change
Guest: Dr. M. S. Swaminathan
Swaminathan is known as a world leader in sustainable food security, and as the catalyst of the green revolution movement in India from 1960-1982 that moved the country from having the world's largest food deficit to producing enough grain to feed its people.
November 10, 2011
Setting the Stage | Why Agriculture
Guest: Dr. P. Stephen Baenziger
P. Stephen Baenziger, University of Nebraska-Lincoln small grains breeder, brought his passion about his work to a talk titled "Setting the Stage: Why Agriculture?" Baenziger was the second speaker in the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources' Heuermann Lecture series, which focuses on meeting the world's growing food and renewable energy needs while sustaining natural resources and the rural communities in which food grows.
December 12, 2011
Conflict and Resolution on the Missouri River
Guest: Bob Kerrey
Lack of local authority over the Missouri River basin "guarantees that the politics over the river are at best dysfunctional and at worst counter-productive," said Bob Kerrey, former Nebraska senator and governor.
January 17, 2012
Green Ag Biotech
Guest: Stewart Brand
The world is entering a "wild and woolly" time of genetic engineering of food, when some of the most significant advancements may come from "amateur biotech" practitioners and in the developing world, says Stewart Brand, a self-described ecopragmatist and founder of the "Whole Earth Catalog."
The Bold Future of Alternative Energy
Guest: Dr. Jay Keasling
Replacing foreign oil with domestically grown biomass would revolutionize world politics and economies, with states such as Nebraska emerging as potentially huge winners, says a former Clay County farm boy who's now one of the world's leading biotechnology scientists.