The Land Institute is profoundly excited to contribute to a strong, flexible network of perennial grain partners that includes food companies, farmers, retailers, researchers, and now the McKnight Foundation.
Intermediate wheatgrass developed by The Land Institute (as Kernza® perennial grain) is now being grown, used to make products, and has an expanding research community and increasing consumer demand.
Although Kernza® can now be grown, processed, and eaten at a small scale, much research is still needed to develop high yielding varieties and determine growing methods based on ecological principles that will maximize ecosystem services provided by Kernza and other perennial crops currently in development.
With generous support from the McKnight Foundation just announced this spring, we are initiating a communications project – formalizing a conversation already engaged around Kernza – to sustain enthusiasm, understanding and financial support for perennial grain development broadly, as part of a holistic vision for more truly sustainable food production.
With funding support from The McKnight Foundation and The Land Institute, and with our partners at Forever Green, Green Lands Blue Waters, a diverse group of Kernza innovators and early-adopters, and guidance from Resource Media and other communications consultants, we’ll engage in a sustained two-year process to build a strategic, coordinated communications plan in support of the commercialization and use of perennial crops grown in mixtures in the Upper Mississippi River Basin, beginning with Kernza® perennial grain.
For more information, contact Scott Allegrucci.