Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
About 40 years ago, Wes Jackson at the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas asked this radical question: Why can’t we have perennial grains? Since grains make up about 65% of worldwide calories, why not develop perennial versions?
A cereal and beers are now being made with a new variety of perennial grain known as Kernza. Proponents say this marks a significant advance for a new agriculture that borrows from the wild prairie and could help ensure sustainable food production in a warming world.
The Land Institute, based in Salina, Kansas, remains the only U.S.-based research institute devoted to developing perennial grains and multi-species farming systems — but institutions around the world have now joined the effort.
Meanwhile, I offer you below a mere snippet of Small Farm Futurology in the form of a letter of mine recently published in Permaculture Magazine (No.88), which discourses on two themes aficionados of this site will perhaps be (wearily) familiar with, viz. my friendly scepticism towards the permaculture movement in general and perennial grain breeding in particular.
Allen White and Wes Jackson explore a new agricultural paradigm that mimics rather than contradicts ecological principles.
It’s been about a year since I published my article on perennial grain crops in the journal Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems1 so maybe it’s time to revisit this teasing topic
Just three grass family plants – wheat, rice and maize – furnish about half the energy we eat worldwide.
Scientists have long sought to create a perennial rice that would avoid the damage to the land caused by the necessity of planting annually.
Just as a food forest is a fusion of garden, orchard and woodland, so the food prairie is a fusion of garden, field, and grassland.
