Category: Video

“We Have Always Been at the Roots: The Black Farm Experience” – a panel conversation with the Kansas Black Farmer’s Association, hosted by Dr. JohnElla Holmes, Executive Director and President, and members Donna McClish, Web Davis, and Ryan Tenney at Prairie Festival 2022.

Rachel Stroer, President, The Land Institute, presents “New Roots and Our Unthinkable Future” at Prairie Festival 2022.

Huascar Medina, Poet Laureate of Kansas, presents the Perennial Strachan and Vivian Donnelley Family Keynote Address “Un Mango Grows in Kansas” at Prairie Festival 2022.

“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.