Speaker

Ken Cassman

Currently Emeritus Professor of Agronomy, University of Nebraska, and agricultural consultant. Over a 40-yr career, Ken’s research has focused on ensuring local to global food security while conserving natural resources and protecting the environment. He has worked on many of the world’s major cropping systems—from rice-based systems in the tropics of Asia and South America, to maize-soybean systems in the US, Brazil, and Argentina, and high-value irrigated crops in California, Tasmania, Peru, and Egypt. He currently works at the intersection of intensive agriculture and environmental advocacy to improve yields, profit, soils, and environmental performance. Dr. Cassman led development of the Global Yield Gap Atlas (www.yieldgap.org), a map-based web platform to estimate exploitable gaps in yield and water productivity of major food crops. He co-authored Crop Ecology, a seminal upper-division/graduate school textbook, served as inaugural Editor-in-Chief of the Global Food Security journal, and was a member of the US-EPA Science Advisory Committee on Integrated Nitrogen Management. In 2017, he received the Bertebos Prize from the Swedish Royal Academy of Agriculture and Forestry in recognition of his contributions to agricultural science. Dr. Cassman holds a Ph.D. in Agronomy and Soil Science from the University of Hawaii.