The Potential of Perennials

The Land Institute’s Quest to Redeem Agriculture

through Bio-mimicry

The Land InstituteLaunching an Agricultural

Revolution

• Developing Natural Systems Agriculture

- Mimicking Creation & Ecology

• Creating Perennial Polyculture- A Regenerative & Sustainable System

A Selective Rereading of History

A New Sacramental Theology

Fall From Grace

Agriculture’s destructive consequences

• 80% of natural biomes are covered with perennials in mixtures

• 67% of cultivated land are covered with annual monocrops

Fall From Grace

Perennials – regenerates annually,

a single plant can live many years

Annuals – must be planted from seed every year, a single plant represents one plant generation

Fall From Grace

Cultivation of Annual Crop Species is “Humanity’s Original Sin”

- Wes Jackson, Land Institute Founder & President

“That was probably the first moment when

we began to erode the ecological capital of the soil… It’s when humans first started

withdrawing the earth’s non-renewable resources.”

Fall From Grace

“Agriculture is the largest threat to biodiversity and ecosystem functions of any single human activity.”

- J. Clay

World Agriculture & The Enviornment

Fall From Grace

“Cultivation often has a negative impact on provision of [ecosystem] services. For example, cultivated systems tend to use more water, increase water pollution and soil erosion, store less carbon, emit more greenhouse gases, and support significantly less habitat and biodiversity than the ecosystems they replace.”

- K.G. Cassman & S. WoodEcosystem & Human Well-Being: Synthesis

Mimicking Creation

Land Institute’s Mission StatementWhen people, land, and community are as

one,all three members prosper;

when they relate not as members but as competing interests,

all three are exploited. By consulting Nature as the sourceand measure of that membership,

The Land Institute seeks to develop an agriculture

that will save soil from being lost or poisoned

while promoting a community life at onceprosperous and enduring.

Mimicking Creation

Natural Ecosystem Function

Mimicking Creation

Artificial Ecosystem Under Monocrop Agriculture

Petroleum

Synthetic Fertilizer

Irrigation

CO 2

Run-off & Pollution

Creating a New Strain of Wheat

• Perennializing plants through breeding• Could be used to produce perennial

wheat, barley, corn, soybeans & sunflower strains

• Using selective breeding processes similar to those used to first domesticate crops

• Still 25-50 years away from implementation

Depth of Root Systems

The Path to Redemption

• Critical mass of people, energy & resources needed to move perennials forward

• Talk to farmers

• Lobby your congressperson

• Build support among the academic community

The Path to Redemption

• Take time to spend with nature

• Think of nature as our teacher

• See creation as a reservoir of God’s grace

• When eating or taking communion, think about how your food has been produced and the grace of God that is present in the Earth from which it came

The Path to Redemption

ResourcesOn the Web:

www.landinstitute.orgSearch: Perennial Polyculture

Books:The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael

PollanNew Roots for Agriculture by Wes

Jackson