The Land Institute

The Land Institute is a non-profit research, education, and policy organization dedicated to sustainable agriculture based in Salina, Kansas, United States. Their goal is to develop an agricultural system based on perennial crops that "has the ecological stability of the prairie and a grain yield comparable to that from annual crops". The organization has trademarked Kernza, a wheatgrass grain in development.

History

The institute was founded on 28 acres in 1976 by plant geneticist and MacArthur "genius grant" recipient Wes Jackson and Dana Jackson, who has worked with the Land Stewardship Project in Minnesota. As of 2014, the organization owns at least 879 acres of land.

The Land Institute promotes "natural systems agriculture" through plant breeding. Land Institute scientists are cross breeding the annual crop plants wheat, sorghum and sunflower with wild, perennial relatives to create perennial varieties. Using selective breeding and other techniques, they also are working to domesticate wild perennials. The organization's concept of developing perennial crops is modeled after the ecological design of prairies, which are known for their soil quality, deep root systems, and self-sufficiency. In an interview, Wes Jackson called the concept "an inversion of industrial agriculture." Perennial polyculture systems may have a variety of benefits over conventional annual monocultures such as increased biodiversity, reduced soil erosion, and reduced inputs of irrigation, fossil fuels, fertilizers, and pesticides. Perennial crops also show promise in root-based carbon sequestration. The organization's achievement of productive and genetically stable perennial crop plants for use by farmers is expected to take several decades. Critics note the future economic challenge in profitably harvesting perennial polyculture.