M.S. Swaminathan urges students to care about sustainable agriculture in lecture series

Monday, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln introduced its Heuermann Lecture Series, a series of monthly talks that address the security of food, natural resources and renewable energy. The first lecture set the bar high by bringing in the first ever recipient of the World Food Prize, M.S. Swaminathan. Swaminathan has been at the forefront of great achievements in agriculture and was one of TIME Magazine's 20 most influential Asians of the 20th century, a list that put him alongside Mohandas Gandhi.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln also gave him the Willa S. Cather Award after his lecture. In the 1960s, when his home country of India faced famine and heavily relied on imported foods from other countries, Swaminathan turned down a professorship offer from the University of Wisconsin and returned to give what help he could. Swaminathan developed a hybrid seed that greatly increased India's own wheat production. India went from producing 12 million tons of wheat in the ‘60s to 85 million tons today, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Swaminathan's work isn't done, however. After sparking India's Green Revolution by dramatically increasing India's agricultural production, Swaminathan now wants to start an "evergreen revolution," he said. This would not only help fight starvation, but produce these crops in an eco-friendly way, he said.

But why should college students in Nebraska care?

"Food security is a global issue," Swaminathan said. "By addressing these issues you have a way of ensuring a long-term sustainability for food. If you don't, that endangers future generations."

Even though it is an important issue, Swaminathan displayed studies that showed a diminishing worldwide support of agricultural research. University of Nebraska President J.B. Milliken is trying to buck the trend by making University of Nebraska-Lincoln a hub of agricultural research.

"We want leaders to look to UNL for our research in food security," Milliken said. He went on to add that, in regard to the idea of an evergreen revolution, UNL has "a critical role in creating an environment for the best science and best research. Places like UNL are key in helping policy makers make the right kind of choices."

Even students that aren't majoring in or researching agriculture can have a positive effect on the evergreen revolution. Reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases has a direct effect on agriculture. Swaminathan showed scientific estimates that said by the year 2050, 50 percent of what are now favorable wheat production areas in India will be redefined as lower-potential, heat-stressed and short-season growing environments.

The United States is also contributing part of the problem with one of the world's largest ecological footprints, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

Swaminathan stressed that we could not continue this way.

"Unsustainable lifestyles and unacceptable poverty should become problems of the past, to achieve harmony with nature and with each other," he said.

Brentkoenisman@dailynebraskan.com