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Featuring essays from Leah Penniman, Gary Paul Nabhan, Elsie DuBray, and others, the new book from Island Press/Princeton University Press explores how long-lived plants can transform our farms, plates, and future.
SALINA, Kansas – March 3, 2026 – As the world grapples with the dual crises of climate change and food insecurity, a new book offers a hopeful, delicious solution rooted in the soil itself. The Land Institute and Island Press are proud to announce the release of Living Roots: The Promise of Perennial Foods, edited by Liz Carlisle and Aubrey Streit Krug, with illustrations by Emmy Lingscheit.
Available today, Living Roots is a vibrant collection of essays, poems, and art that makes the case for shifting our food system from annual monoculture crops to diverse perennial food landscapes. While just four crops—corn, wheat, rice, and soybeans—currently provide 75% of human calories, this new anthology reveals the untapped potential of perennial food plants that live for years, building deep root systems that sequester carbon, prevent erosion, and weather extreme drought.
“We are missing out on a tremendous bounty of perennial foods—foods that can not only enrich our diets but help heal the land,” says co-editor Liz Carlisle, author of Lentil Underground. “This book is a behind-the-scenes tour of the movement that is putting these robust plants back at the center of our farms and plates.”
A chorus of voices from the movement: Living Roots features contributions from a diverse group of scientists, farmers, chefs, and Indigenous leaders who are redefining agriculture. Readers will travel from the test plots developing the first commercial perennial grains to the vast grasslands where bison are returning to their homelands.
Featured contributors include:
> Leah Penniman (Soul Fire Farm, Farming While Black) on the spiritual and historical roots of Black agrarianism.
> Gary Paul Nabhan (MacArthur Fellow, ethnobotanist) on the “Cactus Forest” and arid-land resilience.
> Elsie DuBray (standout of the film Gather) on the restoration of buffalo prairies.
> Beth Dooley (James Beard Award-winning author) on the culinary delights of the perennial kitchen.
> Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on regenerative poultry systems.
“These efforts are wildly diverse, much like a healthy forest or prairie,” notes co-editor Aubrey Streit Krug, Director of the Perennial Cultures Lab at The Land Institute. “We need each of them, and the power of perennials, to protect the planet we all share.”
Spring book launch events:
The editors and contributors will be hosting a series of events across the country to celebrate the launch.
> March 8: Salina, KS – Red Fern Booksellers
> March 12: Dubuque, IA – Perennial Farm Gathering
> March 16: Madison, WI – Lake City Books
> March 24: Minneapolis, MN – Open Book
> March 31: Lawrence, KS – Lawrence Public Library
> April 6: Brooklyn, NY – Pratt Institute
> April 8: Northampton, MA – Smith College
> April 9: New Haven, CT – Yale School of the Environment
> April 14: Missoula, MT – Missoula County Ecology & Extension
> April 15: Bozeman, MT – Country Bookshelf
> April 23: Lincoln, NE – UNL Center for Great Plains Studies
> April 28: Champaign, IL – University of Illinois YMCA
> May 6: Palo Alto, CA – Stanford Educational Farm
About the new book: Living Roots: The Promise of Perennial Foods Island Press | ISBN: 9781642833881 | Available at Island Press, Bookshop.org, and major retailers.
About The Land Institute: The Land Institute is leading a global movement to transform agriculture and secure a sustainable future for all. They develop perennial crops and advocate for systems that work with nature to feed humanity and repair our environment. They collaborate with farmers, scientists, and with the plants themselves to evolve humanity’s relationship with the earth: from taking to sharing; from depletion to restoration. The Land Institute is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 1976 in Salina, Kansas, USA.
Media Contact: Tammy Kimbler Chief Communications Officer, The Land Institute, media.line@landinstitute.org, +1 785.823.5376
“This book isn’t just about botany; it’s about relationships. When we learn from plants that return year after year, we learn how to stay in place, how to care for our neighbors, and how to build communities that can endure.”
“For too long, we’ve relied on a ‘fast food’ agriculture of annual plant monocultures that exhaust the soil. Living Roots is about the ‘slow food’ of the soil itself—perennial plants that stay in the ground year-round, building the kind of resilience that can withstand a changing climate while feeding us deeply.”
“Trees, and the soils they root in, have always mattered deeply to our people. To plant a perennial is an act of intergenerational faith. Afro-Indigenous farming traditions teach us how ecological repair requires deep roots–both in the earth and in our history.”
“The oldest farmers in the Americas are leafcutter ants who have learned to work with perennial plants and fungi. By looking to perennial food forests, we find a way forward for agriculture that thrives within the limits of hot and dry lands, through multispecies community.”
“As a food writer, cookbook author, and mom, I’ve come to the humbling conclusion that good food relies on good soil, grown to nourish people and our planet. When I’m looking for hope in these often dark days, cooking with perennial foods is where I start.”
