Forty years of food surpluses have given way to rising food prices and food scarcity. How that happened, what it means, and a look to the future are topics Thursday (Nov. 10), when Dr. P. Stephen Baenziger presents "Setting the Stage: Why Agriculture," the second Heuermann Lecture.

He'll speak at 4 p.m. in the Great Plains Room of the Nebraska East Union on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's East Campus.

The new, public Heuermann Lectures in the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources at UNL focus on meeting the world's growing food and renewable energy needs while sustaining natural resources and the rural communities in which food grows.

Internationally known, Baenziger is the small grains breeder in the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture at UNL. He is the first UNL scientist to hold the Nebraska Wheat Growers Presidential Chair, an endowed professorship through a licensing agreement between NUtech Ventures and Bayer CropScience.

He is one of only two Americans who serve on the prestigious International Rice Research Institute's board of trustees, the other being the Institute's Director General.

Heuermann Lectures are made possible through a gift from B. Keith and Norma Heuermann of Phillips, long-time university supporters with a strong commitment to Nebraska's production agriculture, natural resources, rural areas and people.

A 3:30 p.m. reception precedes the lecture.