The Land Institute: 50 Years of Perennial Possibilities

For 50 years, The Land Institute has been reimagining a different path forward for modern agriculture—one where the annual cycle of tilling, planting and harvesting doesn’t strip essential nutrients from the soil. Perennial plants require less water, fewer chemicals for disease and pest management, and sequester more carbon from the atmosphere than annual crops.

It’s an ambitious goal, and one The Land Institute recognizes won’t happen overnight. For five decades, researchers at TLI, headquartered just outside Salina, Kansas, have been working to make that perennial future a reality. Kernza, a perennial grain developed here in Kansas, is one example. Researchers are also advancing perennial legumes, sorghum, rice, and other crops around the world, each being developed to meet the characteristics needed to create more sustainable options for a growing population.

What started in 1976 as a small gathering billed as an “intellectual hootenanny” has transformed into the three-day Prairie Festival. The festival is a chance to pause and reflect on The Land Institute’s past five decades of work while continuing to pursue the possibilities of a perennial future.

The festival featured a wide array of perennial-themed food, art and music. From keynote speakers and farm tours to research plots, attendees were encouraged to share ideas, ask questions and connect with one another about what the future of agriculture could look like.

After 50 years, the work at The Land Institute is still very much a work in progress. But perhaps that is part of the point. The perennial future they envision isn’t something that will arrive all at once. It is something built slowly through research, experimentation and a willingness to imagine that agriculture can be different.

For 50 years, The Land Institute has been planting the seeds of that idea. The question now is what those seeds might grow into over the next 50. To learn more about The Land Institute be sure to watch our episode with Rachel Stroer, President of The Land Institute Photos and article by Tanner Colvin Click to expand