A new award to recognize outstanding sustained efforts in the promotion of agricultural and biological engineering globally was presented at the 2017 annual International Meeting of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers. This award is named for Lalit Verma, head of the Biological and Agricultural Engineering department, part of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture and the University of Arkansas College of Engineering, and his wife, Aruna Verma.

This year's Lalit and Aruna Verma Award for Excellence in Global Engagement was presented to Bill Stout of China Agricultural University in Beijing for 50 years of sustained contributions toward global advancement and recognition of the profession of agricultural and biological engineering and excellence in global engagement.

The ASABE Global Engagement Initiative emerged from Verma's term as ASABE president. During his term, Verma was instrumental in organizing the Engineering and Technology Innovation for Global Food Security Conference held in South Africa last October, which was the first such conference outside North America in the society's Global Engagement Initiative. The conference was co-sponsored by the College of Engineering and the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, among others. It is the first in a series to be held biennially with an eye on tackling the grand challenges of food, water, and energy security globally.

Verma, who held the presidency during 2014-15, said the Global Food Security Conference helped bring together professionals from Africa and Asia with those in the Americas.

"I wanted our society and profession to have a wider global presence in addressing the challenges associated with producing substantially more food in the next 30 years," he said. "There are different professional societies and organizations trying to take on these grand challenges. Neither a single discipline nor society can tackle these issues in isolation. We strive to bring multiple professions together to address this prodigious challenge." 

To further the ASABE Global Engagement Initiative, a strategic position paper that identifies the importance of agricultural and biological engineers in sustainably feeding the world in 2050 has been developed. It is available online.