Piyush Labhsetwar

Piyush Labhsetwar grew up in South Asia and is a recent transplant to New England, working on land justice. The Land Institute was the first place for formal engagement with the land and agriculture after a circuitous career. He was looking to pivot his career towards agriculture after graduate school, and found the idea of breeding perennial grains inspired by the prairies quite bold, and also the direction we need to move. Piyush learned about a land ethic articulated by Wes Jackson and Wendell Berry, emphasizing that more people caring for the land. He now advocates treating land access as a foundational piece of regenerative agriculture. At The Land Institute, Piyush worked with Shuwen Wang on the Perennial Wheat program, focusing on improving the threshability of perennial wheat and developing genotyping tools to accelerate breeding.

My most perennial trait is Curiosity – I follow every stimulus on the land as a way of listening to it.

Learn more about Piyush’s work at Grow Food Northampton in Massachusetts.

2017-2021 Perennial Wheat Research Associate at The Land Institute