English: Harvesting a Thinopyrum intermedium breeding nursery at The Land Institute. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
At 77, Jackson is a big man with big ideas.
A few weeks ago at the annual Prairie Festival in Salina, Kan. — a celebration, essentially, of true sustainability — I sat down with Wes Jackson to drink rich beer and eat delicious, chewy bread made from the perennial grain Kernza. The Kernza we ate was cultivated at the Land Institute, the festival’s sponsor and the organization Jackson founded here 37 years ago.
At 77, Jackson is a big man with big ideas. Clearly he was back then as well, when he became determined to change the face of agriculture from being dependent upon annual monoculture (that is, planting a new crop of a single plant each year) to one that includes perennial polyculture, with fields containing varieties of mutually complementary species, planted once, harvested seasonally but remaining in place for years.
Jackson has a biblical way of speaking: “The plow has destroyed more options for future generations than the sword,” he says. “But soil is more important than oil, and just as nonrenewable.” Soil loss is one of the biggest hidden costs of industrial agriculture — and it’s created at literally a glacial pace, maybe a quarter-inch per century. The increasingly popular no-till style of agriculture reduces soil loss but increases the need for herbicides. It’s a short-term solution, requiring that we poison the soil to save it.
Annual monoculture like that practiced in the Midwestern Corn Belt is one culprit. It produces the vast majority of our food, and much of that food — perhaps 70 percent of our calories — is from grasses, which produce edible seeds, or cereals. For 10,000 years we’ve plowed the soil, planted in spring and harvested in fall, one crop at a time.
In an essay he published 26 years ago, called “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race,” Jared Diamond theorized that this was essentially our downfall: by losing our hunter-gatherer roots and becoming dependent on agriculture, we made it possible for the human population to expand but paid the price in the often malnourishing, environmentally damaging system we have today.
That’s fascinating, and irreversible; barring a catastrophe that drastically reduces the human population, we’ll rely on agriculture for the foreseeable future. But if we look to the kind of systems Jackson talks about, we can markedly reduce the damage. “We don’t have to slay Goliath with a pebble,” he says of industrial agriculture. “We just have to quit using so much fertilizer and so many pesticides to shrink him to manageable proportions.”
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Sustainable agriculture
- YEASA Targets Active Youth Participation in Agriculture
The YEASA said at a workshop that was organised by a consortium of Afe Babalola University (ABUAD), the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and AfricaRice for national and local ...
- Learn How To Make Sustainable Agriculture An Urban Lifestyle
AGREX aims to inspire a new generation of people to naturally embrace a more sustainable lifestyle, incorporating personal agricultural practices from the comforts of home.
- Citizens’ assembly on agriculture the wrong model, says farming group
A proposal to set up a citizens’ assembly on agriculture and food production is “ill thought-out” and “the wrong model”, according to a farming group.Irish Labour Party Cork East TD Sean Sherlock said ...
- Arable Raises $40 Million to Accelerate Sustainable Agriculture
Arable, the leader in field intelligence for agriculture, today announced it has raised $40 million in series C financing. The company will use the new funding to advance climate resilience in ...
- A network of Wisconsin women farmers preach the value of sustainable agriculture and living connected to the land — and each other
The Soil Sisters will lead a series of workshops from Aug. 5-7, educating 'farm-curious' folks on small-scale farming.
Go deeper with Google Headlines on:
Sustainable agriculture
No news articles
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Land Institute
- Examining the Debate Over Native American Land Acknowledgments
A civil rights lawsuit filed by a University of Washington computer science professor has called attention to a largely academic debate over land acknowledgments — formal statements that recognize ...
- San Pedro’s waterfront development: Developers promise originality, individuality and fun
The focus of the event was combined with the mission of the Urban Land Institute, which has visited San Pedro in the past with its planning advisory panels. Groundbreaking for the project is ...
- Urban Land Institute 2019 Real Estate And Development Outlook Presented On Jan. 15
Urban Land Institute (ULI) is coming to Chattanooga to share its forecast on real estate and development trends, featuring insights from leading experts both nationally and locally thanks to ...
- St. Pete Pier nabs coveted ULI urban design award
The St. Pete Pier has been named one of the 10 winners of the Urban Land Institute’s 2022 Americas Awards for Excellence. The 2022 ULI Americas Awards for Excellence winners are: The pier ...
- St. Pete Pier among top 10 winners for top urban designs
It was just selected among 10 other winners of the Urban Land Institute's 2022 Americas Award for Excellence. It's a top honor to award the best new urban designs across the United States.
Go deeper with Google Headlines on:
Land Institute
No news articles