Category: Video

2017 Prairie Festival

Land Institute president Fred Iutzi closes out 2017 Prairie Festival looking Toward a Perennial Future.

2017 Prairie Festival

Severine von Tscharner Fleming of Greenhorns and The Agrarian Trust delivers the annual Strachan Donnelley Lecture on Conservation and Restoration: New customary rights: Greenhorns, Buckaroos, Family Farms and the Future Tense.

2017 Prairie Festival

As part of 2017 Prairie Festival, a cross section of experiences and perspectives regarding Kernza® as this new crop begins the entry of perennial grains into the consumer marketplace.
Panel includes:
Lee DeHaan, lead scientist, The Land Institute intermediate wheat grass / Kernza® perennial grain program
Jack Erisman, Goldmine Farm, Pana, Illinois
Brianna Fiene, Market Manager for Plovgh
Rachel Stroer, Chief Operating Officer of The Land Institute
James Farag, Senior Manager for Product, Patagonia Provisions

2017 Prairie Festival

Wylie Harris & Ӧzlem Altıok of Seis Flechas Farm and University of North Texas share their perspectives and experiences of going back to the land and back to the city, across a number of boundaries, and what it requires from us to connect the two.

2017 Prairie Festival

Brian Donahue, Brandeis University professor, author, farmer, former Land Institute staff, and current board member shapes a regionalized vision for active resettlement of the American countryside at 2017 Prairie Festival.

2017 Prairie Festival

A new project of The Land Institute, Ecosphere Studies, update by Aubrey Streit Krug, Bill Vitek, and Wes Jackson as part of the 2017 Prairie Festival.

2017 Prairie Festival

The 2017 annual Land Institute research updates, including all science staff and research projects of The Land Institute and some partners and visitors from ICRISAT Kenya, St. Louis University and the Missouri Botanical Garden, Kansas University, and University of Georgia.

2017 Prairie Festival

Wes Jackson’s featured talk at 2017 Prairie Festival: Framework for the Future.

2017 Prairie Festival

Cathrine Sneed of The Garden Project at 2017 Prairie Festival: Teaching the Value of Work, by working the land and growing food.

2017 Prairie Festival

2017 Prairie Festival guest artist Karen McCoy discusses her art project for the festival.

2017 Prairie Festival

The Land Institute president Fred Iutzi opens the 2017 Prairie Festival, discussing the theme Urban Agriculture and Rural Agrarianism: Toward a Perennial Future.

Natural ecosystems are self-sustaining.  For at least 10,000 years, humans have disrupted those ecosystems and kept them in a continuous state of disruption in order to feed our populations. Increasingly, the scale of those agricultural disruptions threatens to permanently degrade the ecosphere upon which we depend.

Humans didn’t plan this, nor do we intend harm.  And certainly farmers and agricultural producers, along with food consumers, are caught together with other living communities and species in a food and agricultural system that has been pushed beyond its breaking point.

We believe that it doesn’t have to be this way.

Led by a team of plant breeders and ecologists working in global partnerships, we are developing new perennial crops to be grown in ecologically functional mixtures known as polycultures. Our goal is to create an agriculture that mimics many aspects of natural ecosystems in order to produce ample food and reduce the negative impacts of industrial agriculture.

From nutrient retention to carbon sequestration to weed suppression, the agriculture we are bringing to fruition promises to become a soil-forming, rather than a soil-degrading activity.

We invite you to learn more about our work at The Land Institute and how these perennial polycultures are at the heart of the fundamental shift we and our partners are working toward.

The Land Institute is a 501(c)(3) non-profit research organization founded in 1976 and based in Salina, Kansas.  To enable this critical work, you may donate online or contact us at 785-823-5376 to visit with our team.