Men's basketball vs. Minnesota

Ronnie Green Author

03/09/2020 Added

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Ronnie Green talks about the university's global leadership in the use of water for food production and Nebraska studies showing significant gains in efficiency in the use of water in animal agriculture.

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[00:00:00.000](upbeat pop music)
[00:00:02.440]Welcome back,
[00:00:03.273]it's halftime at the Huskers regular season finale
[00:00:05.483]against the Minnesota Golden Gophers.
[00:00:07.090]Greg Sharpe in Lincoln
[00:00:08.440]joined by University of Nebraska Lincoln
[00:00:09.910]chancellor Ronnie Green.
[00:00:10.900]Can't believe we're in the end of the regular season.
[00:00:12.537]The Big Ten tournament coming up here in a couple of days.
[00:00:15.600]It's been a disappointing year,
[00:00:17.060]but I know that Coach Hoiberg's
[00:00:18.725]I think done about as much as he can
[00:00:20.470]with the group that he has this season.
[00:00:22.230]Well you know, it's his final game
[00:00:23.720]of the regular season, of course.
[00:00:24.981]And it's been a year for building a foundation.
[00:00:28.570]Right, I think that's what everyone would say.
[00:00:30.710]Teams competed hard all season in a really tough conference.
[00:00:34.900]Been interesting to watch, you know, during the year.
[00:00:37.840]We certainly are grateful for our two seniors
[00:00:40.160]on the team this year who are finishing
[00:00:41.850]out their senior season.
[00:00:44.368]Of course Haanif Cheatham who came to us as a new player
[00:00:47.810]it's been fun to watch Haanif and to listen to him talk.
[00:00:50.570]You know, a great young man and, of course, Matej Kavas also
[00:00:55.720]who was knocked out, you know, with an injury here recently.
[00:00:59.190]But, we certainly have appreciated their play and honor them
[00:01:03.290]here in their last game of the season.
[00:01:05.500]And we, we're going to the tournament expecting the team
[00:01:07.930]to give its best shot, you know,
[00:01:09.210]and who knows what might happen?
[00:01:10.690]But lookin' forward to the future
[00:01:13.000]and lookin' forward to next year for certain.
[00:01:14.900]In athletics we talk a lot
[00:01:16.060]about strengths of teams,
[00:01:17.350]I wanna hear about the strengths of, one of the strengths
[00:01:19.140]of this university and it's the study of the use of water
[00:01:22.050]for production of food.
[00:01:23.470]And what is the latest news in this area of global research
[00:01:26.330]that Nebraska's a leader in the worldwide arena for?
[00:01:30.400]Well you know, Greg we know
[00:01:33.300]we have a big challenge lying ahead of us globally.
[00:01:36.480]So if you look out to the century's half-mark, you know,
[00:01:40.340]when 2050 rolls around here,
[00:01:42.110]which won't be that many years away from where we are today,
[00:01:46.430]you know there's gonna be a substantial increase
[00:01:48.400]in the population of the world by that time.
[00:01:50.400]We'll go from the 7.7-.8 billion people today on the planet
[00:01:55.320]to, you know, upwards of 10 billion people
[00:01:58.720]on the planet by 2050.
[00:02:01.090]Substantially more food required with, we think,
[00:02:05.140]also less water, right?
[00:02:06.880]So this is a real grand challenge of how
[00:02:09.770]you feed a growing planet with less water around the world.
[00:02:13.340]And, fortunately, Nebraska has been an international leader
[00:02:17.710]in water historically.
[00:02:19.730]We know we exist because of the Ogallala Aquifer
[00:02:22.960]and the water sheds in Nebraska
[00:02:25.180]and this institution has been a leader internationally
[00:02:27.920]in understanding water and water resource management
[00:02:30.960]and the aquifer reflects that.
[00:02:32.620]You know, that we have a healthy aquifer.
[00:02:35.430]The Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute was formed
[00:02:38.410]here almost 10 years ago,
[00:02:40.100]it'll celebrate its 10th anniversary
[00:02:41.930]coming up this next year, during this year.
[00:02:46.000]And it was actually formed to pull all that water expertise
[00:02:49.660]together across the university.
[00:02:52.120]Most of that here at UNL, about 115 faculty here at UNL
[00:02:57.120]engaged in this work.
[00:02:59.110]And they've just put out some really interesting data
[00:03:02.820]in the last period of time about the livestock industries,
[00:03:07.050]in particular, and shown that since 1960,
[00:03:11.210]so over the last several decades, that the amount of water
[00:03:15.320]used to produce animal protein has gone down substantially.
[00:03:20.530]You know, that it's dropped by over 35%,
[00:03:24.302]36% over that period of time.
[00:03:27.520]Varied a little bit about different,
[00:03:29.750]if you're talking about pork versus beef versus dairy,
[00:03:32.830]but in all sectors has decreased the amount
[00:03:35.220]of water utilized primarily due to the increases
[00:03:38.920]in efficiency of those productions.
[00:03:41.530]So increased efficiency in beef production,
[00:03:43.640]increased efficiency of dairy production,
[00:03:45.620]of swine production, and are continuing to make
[00:03:48.520]that kind of progress move forward.
[00:03:50.220]So, interesting data that just came out
[00:03:52.920]of the Water for Food Institute.
[00:03:54.530]That really shows things have advanced.
[00:03:55.690]What are the factors that led to these improvements?
[00:03:58.580]Well, you know, this is gonna sound
[00:04:00.290]like the pot calling the kettle black, you know,
[00:04:02.010]a little bit as my mother used to say.
[00:04:03.610]I'm a cattle geneticist and I would point first to the fact
[00:04:08.069]that the way we have selectively bred and improved animals
[00:04:12.930]in the livestock sector genetically
[00:04:16.140]has led to much of that efficiency gain.
[00:04:18.240]We just produce more with less, you know,
[00:04:21.040]product with less and higher quality product with less,
[00:04:23.980]so a lot of it's there.
[00:04:25.200]But it's also in water resource management,
[00:04:28.660]in precision agriculture that's going into crop production
[00:04:31.510]that's using less water.
[00:04:33.220]It's going into selective breeding of corn, sorghum, wheat,
[00:04:37.620]you know, of feed inputs into the livestock sector
[00:04:40.510]that we produce so much more efficiently than we did
[00:04:44.040]at one time.
[00:04:44.873]And as I mentioned earlier, you know,
[00:04:46.230]we have 114 faculty working here on the UNL campus out
[00:04:49.990]of the 120 system-wide that are working in this water arena.
[00:04:54.300]So the Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute
[00:04:56.390]doin' big things here in its 10th anniversary year
[00:04:59.410]at the University of Nebraska.
[00:05:00.950]Very good, we're really proud of them.
[00:05:02.150]Thank you so much for the update
[00:05:03.210]and we'll see you down the road!
[00:05:04.710]Sure enough and, you know,
[00:05:06.200]we got a lot of spring left to come up here, so go Big Red!
[00:05:09.580]Ronnie Green here with us at halftime.
[00:05:10.900]We've got more comin' up next.

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Men's basketball vs. Minnesota

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