Wes Jackson wants you to think deeply about the roots of agriculture.
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Mr. Jackson is president of the Land Institute in Salina, Kan., which focuses on creating new species of perennial plants for food production. He believes our system of industrial agriculture, with its dependence on annual crops that must be ripped up and regrown every year, is inherently flawed—rapidly eroding soil and depleting its nutrients.
"When we set out 36 years ago, we set out to solve the 10,000-year-old problem of agriculture," says Mr. Jackson.
The solution? Replace annual crops with perennial ones, better suited to sustain the soil. And sow them in mixtures, which makes them better able to manage soil nutrients and adapt to environmental changes, among other things.
The institute, which has cooperative projects with researchers around the world, is developing several types of perennial grain, including wheat and sorghum. Stan Cox, a senior scientist at the institute, predicts that a wheatgrass called kernza may be the first plant ready for viable production.
Kernza is a relative of wheat and can be used in a lot of the same foods, like pancakes, cookies and tortillas. It doesn't have the gluten strength to make good bread right now, says Mr. Cox, but it can work when mixed with regular wheat flour. Varieties with stronger gluten could be developed down the road.
But don't look for it anytime soon. Mr. Cox says the timetable for introducing kernza is about 10 years—two decades after work on it began.
Looking ahead, James Holland, a research geneticist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, thinks perennial grains could gain momentum if they're introduced—and work—in areas where soil erosion has hit hard. Still, he wonders how widely they can be adopted, since conventional breeders have been tinkering with their crops for decades to boost efficiency and hardiness. The Land Institute's perennials would need to catch up to deliver the same results.
Seth C. Murray, an assistant professor in the department of soil and crop sciences at Texas A&M University, believes in perennial grain production, but thinks limited resources will hamper the Land Institute's efforts. "It is research at this point," says Mr. Murray. "There's nothing on hand to say this is a sure thing. That's why companies aren't working on it."
Although Mr. Cox admits it is slow going, a lack of funds hasn't constrained the Land Institute's ability to do research, he says. There is scant government money, but contributions from individuals and grants from foundations are keeping the work going.
"We'll get there," Mr. Jackson says, with the patient drawl of a plant breeder from Kansas. "But it is no instant gratification. We're making considerable progress, but this is not for the conventional mind."