Video & Audio Library

“In Real Time: Chronicles of a Fate Unknown” – A conversation with Alexia Leclercq, grassroots organizer and Co-Founder of Start:Empowerment, and Stan Cox, Research Fellow, Ecosphere Studies, The Land Institute, at Prairie Festival 2022.

“Back to the Land: How to Live in the World without Destroying It” was presented by Eric Schlosser, Journalist, Filmmaker, and Author of Fast Food Nation, at Prairie Festival 2022.

“Updates on Progress Toward a Perennial Future” was a presentation by The Land Institute’s Dr. Tim Crews, Chief Scientist, and Dr. Aubrey Streit Krug, Director of Ecosphere Studies, at Prairie Festival 2022.

“evolve | become: works on paper from the Konza Prairie” was a presentation by Erin Wiersma, Prairie Festival Featured Artist at Prairie Festival 2022.

Prairie Festival 2022 – The Old Future is Gone – A conversation with Eric Schlosser, Journalist, Author, and Filmmaker, and Wes Jackson, Co-Founder and President Emeritus of The Land Institute.

Rachel Stroer, President of The Land Institute kicks off Prairie Festival 2022 in the Big Barn.

Researcher, collaborator, and board member Lennart Olsson presented at the UK’s premier regenerative agriculture conference, Groundswell 2022, on perennial agriculture.

The root causes of many environmental problems in agriculture, like greenhouse gas emissions, soil erosion, nutrient leaching, water pollution, and high agrochemical use, come from our dependence on annual crops and cropping systems. Social predicaments, like labor and capital intensity, our dependence on expensive inputs, and government subsidies can also be attributed to annual crops.

Shifting to perennial grains could dramatically improve all these aspects. Recent advances in the domestication and breeding of new perennial grain crops show the technical feasibility of shifting to perennial crops. However, what are the prospects of such a radical shift toward this “perennial revolution” when it is at odds with the economic interests of the agricultural inputs industry?

Lennart Olsson presents potential and obstacles and gives three reasons for optimism about the future.

Kernza® Perennial Grain Meeting 2022 in Salina, Kansas. An international group of presenters included Tessa Peters, Lee DeHaan, Aubrey Streit-Krug, Sophia Skelly, Amy Teller, Jake Jungers, Tara Ritter, Hanne Thomsen, Guangbin Luo, Javad Najafi, Pedro Correia, Prabin Bajgain, Jared Crain, Steve Larson, Valentin Picasso, Thomas McKenna, Olivier Duchene, Hannah Stoll, Connie Carlson, Tim Crews, Jess Gutknecht, Colin Cureton, George Annor, Christopher Abbott, Douglas Michael, Alexandra Diemer, Peter Miller, and Tammy Kimbler.

George Monbiot discussed his new book, Regenesis with journalist and broadcaster Lucy Siegle live from London. A team from The Land Institute was present in the live audience. Kernza® perennial grain was featured in the talk.

Monbiot opens Regenesis with a chapter on the fundamentals of soil science and covers the use of perennial rather than annual crops, i.e. crops that can be harvested multiple years in a row.

“Large areas dominated by annual plants are rare in nature. They tend to colonize ground in the wake of catastrophe […] in cultivating annuals, we must keep the land in the catastrophic state they prefer.”

Video recording of Professor Aviva Chomsky, author of Is Science Enough: Forty Critical Questions About Climate Justice, and author Stan Cox speak virtually at the Greenpoint Library and Environmental Education Center. This book examines why social, racial, and economic justice are as crucial as science in determining how we can reverse climate catastrophe.