CEDAR FALLS, Iowa -- Wes Jackson needs to look no further than the 200-foot gullies eaten out of Iowa farm fields by last summer's flooding to demonstrate that the current system of agriculture isn't working.
The plant geneticist and co-founder and president of the Land Institute in Salina, Kan., spoke about the need for a 50-year farm bill last week at the Center for Energy and Environmental Education at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls.
"The kind of landscape we have created in Iowa has everything to do with the intensification of last summer's flooding, and the kind of agriculture we have is a big deal in so many ways as we experience the tragedy of this past year," said Kamyar Enshayan, a Cedar Falls city councilor and director of the CEEE.
Enshayan, who is Jackson's son-in-law, said his visit is part of a dialogue to create more resilient land use in Iowa.
With a burgeoning population, oil and water becoming scarce, and climate change causing erratic weather, it is time for a new agriculture, Jackson said.
His work at the Land Institute the past 33 years has focused on domesticating wild perennials such as Illinois bundleflower, a legume and an active nitrogen fixer, and breeding annual grains and oil seeds such as wheat, sorghum and sunflowers into perennials by hybridizing them with their wild relatives.
A perennial wheat variety, Kernza, should be farmer-ready within 10 years. Jackson is devoted to developing an agricultural system with the ecological stability of the prairie and a grain yield comparable to that from annual crops.
To find examples of a renewable economy, the country must look to nature, Jackson said.
Jackson is calling for a 50-year farm bill that rewards farmers in five-year increments for working more perennials into their rotations. A "combine for cows exchange program" would help grain farmers convert to hay or gazing operations with incentives to substitute grass for grain in meat and milk production. Within 10 years, the first perennial grain crops would be released, and new varieties would expand the geographic range.
By 2050, perennial grains would largely replace annual grains as feed, fuel and food staples. The primary management tools would be fire and grazing. Increasing perennials would protect the soil and substantially reduce greenhouse gases, fossil-fuel use and pollution.
"The 50-year farm bill, if implemented, would solve many problems at once and also keep us fed so we can get through this long dark tunnel the climate change people tell us is coming," Jackson said.
He takes a long view of changing agriculture.
"Our motto is that if you're working on something that you're going to finish in your lifetime, you're not thinking big enough," Jackson said. "We're talking about the necessity and the possibility. As the tendency grows, the imagination increases."Agri News
