Tim Crews
Chief Scientist; Director of the International Initiative
Tim is at The Land Institute because, in his words, “the work is the most focused and far-reaching of any organization I know. It promises to transform agriculture from being an ecological liability to an asset.” Tim first visited The Land Institute in 1981 after reading New Roots for Agriculture as an undergraduate majoring in agroecology at the University of California-Santa Cruz. Over the next three decades, he pursued a doctorate degree at Cornell, carried out a post-doc fellowship at Stanford, and developed an agroecology program at Prescott College in Northern Arizona. But all along, he continued to track the work of The Land Institute and, in 2000, began to collaborate directly. In 2012, Tim joined the staff as director of research and an ecologist. He helps facilitate and coordinate the research efforts of his colleagues and conducts work on the ecosystem functions performed by soils.
Tim was recently named the Director of the International Initiative, which you can read more about here.
Authored or Co-authored Scientific Publications
Changes in Soil Phosphorus, Perennials Versus Annuals
Crop Diversity and Disease
Going Where No Grains Have Gone Before
Harvested Perennial Grasslands Provide Ecological Benchmarks for Agricultural Sustainability
Increased Food and Ecosystem Security via Perennial Grains
Long-term Impacts of High-input Annual Cropping and Unfertilized Perennial Grass Production on Soil Properties and Belowground Food Webs in Kansas, USA
New Roots for Ecological Intensification
Perennial Crops and Endogenous Nutrient Supplies
Perennial Food Security: From Genetics and Breeding to Agronomy to Ecology
The Strong Perennial Vision: A Response
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