Land Report Number 113, Fall 2015 · The Land Institute About The Land Institute MISSION STATEMENT DIRECTORS When people, land and community are as one, all three members Christina Lee Brown Brian Donahue prosper; when they relate not as members but as competing inter- Vivian Donnelley ests, all three are exploited. By consulting nature as the source and Sam Evans Terry Evans (emeritus) measure of that membership, The Land Institute seeks to develop an Pete Ferrell agriculture that will save soil from being lost or poisoned, while pro- Jan Flora Eric Gimon moting a community life at once prosperous and enduring. Wes Jackson Kenneth Levy-Church Michelle Mack OUR WORK Patrick McLarney Thousands of new perennial grain plants live year-round at The Land Leigh Merinoff Conn Nugent Institute, prototypes we developed in pursuit of a new agriculture Victoria Ranney (emeritus) that mimics natural ecosystems. Grown in polycultures, perennial Lloyd Schermer (emeritus) John Simpson crops require less fertilizer, herbicide and pesticide. Their root sys- Donald Worster tems are massive. They manage water better, exchange nutrients Angus Wright more e∞ciently and hold soil against the erosion of water and wind. STAFF This strengthens the plants’ resilience to weather extremes, and re- Scott Allegrucci stores the soil’s capacity to hold carbon. Our aim is to make conser- Jamie Bugel vation a consequence, not a casualty, of agricultural production. Carrie Carpenter Marty Christians Sheila Cox LAND REPORT Stan Cox Land Report is published three times a year. issn 1093-1171. The edi- Tim Crews tor is Scott Bontz. To use material from the magazine, reach him at Lee DeHaan Ti≠any Durr [email protected], or the address or phone number below. Ron Fent Adam Gorrell Stephanie Hutchinson ELECTRONIC MEDIA Wes Jackson For e-mail news about The Land Institute, write to Carrie Carpenter Patricia Johnson at [email protected], or call. Web site: landinstitute.org. Laura Kemp Ron Kinkelaar John Mai SUPPORT Randy Mathews To help The Land Institute, see the contribution form on page 30, or Pheonah Nabukalu Jayne Norlin go to landinstitute.org. Contributors receive the Land Report. Duane Schrag Scott Seirer TO REACH US Dorene Shipley Rachel Stroer The Land Institute Freddie Smith 2440 E. Water Well Road, Salina, KS 67401 David Van Tassel phone 785-823-5376 Cindy Thompson Kathryn Turner fax 785-823-8728 Shuwen Wang [email protected] Darlene Wolf 2 LAND REPORT Land Report Number 113, Fall 2015 · The Land Institute 4 Jackson to leave presidency 18 Wheat that takes the heat The man who co-founded The Land Breeding perennial intermediate Institute in 1976 wants to keep work- wheatgrass by durum, a wheat with ing for the organization’s mission, but fewer chromosomes than bread wheat, plans to hand over leadership by his makes hybrids that can survive the 80th birthday next year. summer after harvest. 6 Where and what we are 20 What will people do for dirt? For inversion of thinking that has put Just about anything, historian Angus the world outside us, consider poet Wright said, including kill one an- Nikki Giovanni’s view of friendship. other. But their complex conservation methods for annual crops still lose soil. 8 Are there other candidates? The Land Institute’s development of 23 Land Institute shorts perennial crops is confined to a hand- Sequencing intermediate wheatgrass. ful of species. It has enlisted help to Land Institute perennials in Denmark seek more prospects among the world’s and Sweden. thousands of perennials. 24 Desert food crops prophet 16 Perennial grains in Africa For as long as The Land Institute has Researchers saw how African farmers, pursued perennial grains, Richard with poor soil and no fertilizer, could Felger has promoted native desert benefit from perennial grains. They plants to feed the Southwest. also saw how perennial sorghum plants from The Land Institute were faring. 28 Thanks to our contributors Cover Pinnate prairie coneflower planted this year at The Land Institute to consider for development as a crop plant. The institute has joined with Missouri Botanical Garden and Saint Louis University to look among the world’s thousands of perennials for more candidates. See page 8. Scott Bontz photo. THE LAND INSTITUTE 3 Wes Jackson and supporters at the Prairie Festival. In 1976 Jackson and his wife at the time, Dana, founded The Land Institute. By its 40th anniversary next year he plans to leave the position of institute president. Jackson will be 80, but he wants to continue work for an agriculture patterned after natural ecosystems. “Of course no orga- nization stays the way it came into being,” he wrote to institute directors. But he hoped The Land Institute would stick to its mission of making people, land, and community as one, “willing to make necessary adjustments in order to get on with the job while avoiding the obsessions of the dominant culture.” Scott Seirer photo. 4 LAND REPORT Jackson plans to retire as president es Jackson does not want remain before perennial grains grown in to stop working toward mixtures can succeed commercially. But The his idea for a revolution Land Institute’s prospects have never looked of agriculture, with grains so bright. The man who can see the institute Wthat are perennial rather than annual, and from his backyard, and who can be irritated grown in mixtures of species like natural to see a plastic bag left uncollected after ecosystems to improve soil, water, farms, blowing against an institute fence, knows it and even the broader culture. In that last will be a struggle for him to let go. He has arena he wants to advance what he calls in- thought much about this, and wrote to the stitutionalization of an ecological worldview directors, “It is my intention to avoid giving – seeing Earth not as an environment sepa- advice or direction to my successor unless rate from us, something for us to use, but as asked. The next president will need the best a working whole of which we are a part. He chance to be ‘presidential.’” wants to write more. He might occasionally He encouraged the institute to still use still help raise money for The Land Institute. his barns and even his home for events like But four decades after founding the orga- the institute’s annual Prairie Festival. nization, he plans to hand over the reins as When Seirer announced the retirement president. plan to 700 festival-goers, they gave Jackson The transition is to be made by the a standing ovation. Next day they stood end of June 2016, the month of the founding again not just after but also before Jackson’s anniversary and of his 80th birthday. “The traditional festival-closing talk. stars are aligned,” Scott Seirer, the insti- Leading the search for a successor is tute’s managing director, said at the Prairie a committee of three board members and Festival in late September. Jackson also will two employees. Jackson is not on it. Doing leave The Land Institute’s 16-member Board the search legwork is San Francisco-based of Directors. California Environmental Associates. The Jackson has made the institute and its president will need to be creative, energetic, mission his life. The organization has grown patient, nimble of mind, and willing to chal- from a budget of $6,938 to $5.3 million. It lenge the status quo, Seirer said. employs more than 30 people, and manages Jackson said to directors, “Presidents buildings, equipment, and 691 acres worth without a vision become mere reactors to a total of $17 million. In the past two years the visions of those who dwell only on the it has essentially doubled the money going mechanics of sustaining the organization. to development of perennial grains, and in- Without a vision the job runs the president, cluded collaborators on every continent but causing the necessary energies of transcen- Antarctica. Jackson has long said that if you dence to falter and the spirited engagement choose a job that can be finished in your life- of the intellect of those around him or her to time, you aren’t thinking big enough. Years falter as well.” THE LAND INSTITUTE 5 Where and what we are o take our crops from vast fields of homogeneity and isolation, and instead grow them in niched mixtures of species, might help Tus recognize that all of our plants and live- A Poem of Friendship stock, and all of the things we aren’t directly eating – soil, water, air, wild species – are woven as a creative whole. This whole may nikki giovanni be called Earth, or it may be called the eco- sphere. What it should not be called, Land We are not lovers Institute President Wes Jackson thinks, is because of the love the environment. That word connotes some- we make thing out there or surrounding us, rather but the love than something of which we are an inter- we have dependent part. He made this argument in June at a Land Institute conference for insti- We are not friends tutionalization of an ecospheric worldview because of the laughs – that is, changing through education how we spend we see ourselves in the world. After the but the tears conference, Jackson’s wife, Joan, found and we save shared with him a poem. He thought this poem spoke to making that change in view, I don’t want to be near you and he sent it to conference participants for the thoughts we share with this introduction: “I loved the way it but the words we never have inverts much common understanding about to speak close relationships.