Kansas State University

MANHATTAN — One of the world's leading scholars in agricultural sustainability is speaking at Kansas State University about how to sustainably feed a growing world population that will require twice as much food as is currently produced.

Jules Pretty, professor of environment and society and deputy vice chancellor at the University of Essex in the U.K., will give the lecture "The Sustainable Intensification of Agricultural Systems" at 4 p.m. Monday, Nov. 17, in 1018 Throckmorton Hall. The lecture is free and the public is welcome.

The lecture focuses on sustainable intensification — producing more food with fewer resources and less stress on the environment. Pretty coined the term sustainable intensification, and is recognized as a leader in the field of sustainability in agriculture.

Pretty is a fellow of the Society of Biology and the Royal Society of Arts; former deputy chair of the U.K. government's Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment, and has served on advisory committees for numerous government department and research councils in the U.K. He was a member of two Royal Society working groups and was a member of the U.K. government Foresight project on Global Food and Farming Futures.

Pretty received an Office of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, or OBE, award in 2006 for services to sustainable agriculture.

He has written 18 books on sustainability in agriculture, including "The Edge of Extinction" in 2014, "This Luminous Coast" in 2011, "The Earth Only Endures" in 2007 and "Agri-Culture" in 2002.

In September, Kansas State University received $50 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development to lead the world's efforts in agricultural sustainability through the establishment of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Sustainable Intensification.