Bereuter to deliver Oct. 19 Sorensen Lecture

Doug Bereuter
Doug Bereuter

Doug Bereuter, who represented Nebraska's 1st Congressional District from 1979-2004, will present the 2014 Sorensen Lecture, "Can the World Feed Nine Billion People? Implications for Nebraska" at 7 p.m., Oct. 19 in the Hardin Hall auditorium (room 107). The seminar is free and open to the public.

The lecture will address the broad question of whether the world can produce enough nutritious food to feed a population that is conservatively estimated to increase from the current seven billion people to a population of more than nine billion by 2050. It will highlight the pressing and generally under-appreciated food security challenges facing the world, including the trade and access problems of food supplies and agricultural inputs, the necessity of enhancing nutrition in the food supplies, the prospects for political turmoil and conflict caused by food shortages and price volatility, and the adaptation and mitigation initiatives required to cope with climate change and increased weather volatility. With respect to the latter in particular, Bereuter expects to consider and build upon the Sep. 25 Heuermann Lecture at UNL that presented the university's much-anticipated report, "Understanding and Assessing Climate Change: Implications for Nebraska."

Bereuter is a fifth-generation Nebraskan who represented the state's 1st Congressional District for 26 years from 1979-2004, after which he served as president and CEO of The Asia Foundation. Since 2011, he has been president emeritus of the foundation. During his congressional career, Bereuter was deeply involved in international issues, including membership on the House International Relations Committee, where his service included the Human Rights Subcommittee and the Subcommittee on Economic Policy and Trade.

Bereuter is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the State Department's International Security Advisory Board. He is a board member of the Nebraska Community Foundation, a past chairman of the Arbor Day Foundation and co-chair of the Chicago Council of Global Affair's Global Agricultural Development Initiative. Bereuter is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Nebraska, and has master's degrees in city planning and public administration from Harvard University.

The lecture is co-sponsored by the Unitarian Church of Lincoln and UNL's School of Natural Resources.

More details at: http://go.unl.edu/u8t9