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Humans have been producing food using the same paradigm for 10,000 years. But the burden of a growing population and the impacts of an industrial approach to farming threaten the entire enterprise. The Land Institute is working on a solution.

In this episode, we talk with Fred Lutzi, President of The Land Institute, about their unique approach to transforming current destructive agricultural practices.

The Land Institute is a science-based research organization based in Kansas, US, that is developing perennial crops as an alternative to current unsustainable practices in agriculture. Instead of relying on and tweaking extractive industrial systems, the institute focuses on perennial grains grown using regenerative agricultural practices. “Agriculture must understand and mimic sustaining natural systems if we hope to feed a growing world population”.

In the episode we discuss:

• What Fred thinks are the major problems of agriculture today
• What the Land Institute means by transforming agriculture by developing a ‘Natural Systems Agriculture’
• What perennial crops are, what they promise, and how they differ from annual crops
• The Land Institute’s Kernza® wheatgrass crop and the road to commercialization
• Why perennial crops are currently not the norm: what’s holding us back?
• What Fred thinks we can all do as consumers to work towards a common goal
• A pilgrimage to the beer of the future: Long Root Ale – a Kernza®-based beer by Patagonia Provisions

Links

• The Land Institute website
• More about Perennial plants
• Great video about Long Root Ale - A Kernza®-based beer by Patagonia Provisions
• The Land Institute's global research partners