This New Cereal and Beer share an Ingredient–and it’s Fighting Climate Change
When Patagonia decided to go into the beer business, part of the motivation was fighting climate change: The key ingredient in its beer, a grain called Kernza, is particularly good…
Bill Gates thinks these 5 agricultural hacks can help stop climate change
Here’s a seemingly obvious quote from Bill Gates about how to sustain life on earth: “[A]t the end of the day, people have to eat.” It doesn’t take a genius…
The Shift to Perennialization in Agriculture & the Broader Culture
To maintain annual agriculture, we wipe out perennial vegetation and effectively destroy everything on the landscape in order to plant crops every year. The negative consequences of this ecological disaster…
Perennial grains could be a key weapon against climate change. But not quite yet.
As climate change climbs the chart of existential threats, soil is getting a lot of attention. Back when it supported forest or grassland, before we cleared it to grow crops,…
GMO Technology’s Role in the Future of Food Is Not What You Might Expect
Lee DeHaan is a plant geneticist at The Land Institute, where he is developing perennial wheatgrass Kernza. Thus far in his work, he has always worked with traditional plant breeding to achieve…
17 Organizations Feeding and Healing the World Through Regenerative Agriculture
Transitioning to more sustainable forms of agriculture remains critical, as many current agriculture practices have serious consequences including deforestation and soil degradation. But despite agriculture’s enormous potential to hurt the…
Meet 5 people fixing the food system
By 2050, the world’s population could hit 9 billion. That’s a lot of mouths to feed! The brightest minds in gastronomy and agriculture are working to ensure that producing all that grub…
Growing Against the Grain
The Land Institute pioneers a new paradigm that challenges our current destructive agriculture model: switching annual grain cropping to ecologically intensified perennial polycultures that mimic natural systems. By working with nature,…
Promising research for perennial plants on the Prairies
Researchers say commercial perennial crops suitable for prairie production could be available in as little as 15 years. It’s already been about 90 years of work, but the finish line…
Researcher, doctoral student receive federal fellowships to study grain crops, dairy production strategies
Dorn’s research project aims to shed light on the mechanisms underlying some crops’ perennial growth cycles and inform long-standing efforts to perennialize major annual crops like wheat. He also will…
Can taming wild plants help feed a crowded planet?
Some scientists dream of a future in which people can add sorghum, intermediate wheatgrass and other currently wild perennial plants to their diet. In St. Louis, researchers at the Missouri Botanical…
The Land Institute, Kansas Mecca For Environmentalists, Poised For Major Change
Salina, Kansas, may seem an unlikely Mecca for environmental activists, but it is thanks to the Land Institute. The Land Institute started with the bold idea that for farming to…