Bill Vitek: In Pursuit of Better Agriculture (and a Better Society)

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?

With New Perennial Grain, a Step Forward for Eco-Friendly Agriculture

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.

Perennial Versions of Conventional Crops Offer Benefits to the Environment — But Are they Ready for Prime Time?

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.

Pondering Permaculture

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.