A social perennial vision: Transdisciplinary inquiry for the future of diverse, perennial grain agriculture

Krug, Aubrey Streit; Tesdell, Omar

doi:10.1002/ppp3.10175

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…The grassland biome is the plant kingdom's response to low and erratic rainfall coupled with periodic aboveground disturbance, so managing grasslands well to provide for our needs and wants in a sustainable fashion is paramount to a resilient agriculture as climates become more uncertain. This requires policies that incentivize production systems for the public good rather than profit of a few (Streit Krug & Tesdell, 2020; Reynolds et al., 2021). Policies must encourage grass‐fed markets with ample processing and supply chain development and must incentivize soil building, nutrient retention, and biodiversity gain and penalize soil, nutrient, and biodiversity loss.…”

Section: We Can Transform Agriculture With Policies Designed To Promo...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Grazed perennial grasslands can match current beef production while contributing to climate mitigation and adaptation

Jackson

2022

Agricultural & Env Letters

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The U.S. grain-finished beef system is highly productive but has many negative consequences for human health and well-being because it pollutes surface and groundwaters, exacerbates flooding, reduces biodiversity, and contributes to climate change. Moving the entire U.S. grain-fed beef production system to a grass-finished system is possible without displacing food production and under conservative soil carbon (C) change estimates would result in a reduced but similar C footprint, while improving soil health, water quality, and biodiversity. More optimistic estimates for soil C accumulation indicate the system would result in significant atmospheric C drawdown. Agroecological transformation like this is limited only by our imagination and policies that incentivize agriculture for the public good rather than profits for a few.

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Section: We Can Transform Agriculture With Policies Designed To Promo...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Grazed perennial grasslands can match current beef production while contributing to climate mitigation and adaptation

Jackson

2022

Agricultural & Env Letters

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“…Despite being vulnerable to climate change and other environmental crises, currently dominant annual grain crops and cropping systems are also resilient in the sense that they are relatively resistant to change; this is due to the investments they have already received, and the investments that they continue to receive, of both biophysical and sociocultural energetic resources ( 103 , 185 ). As overall relative investment in agriculture is decreasing ( 186 ), there is increasing competition for research and development resources simply to maintain current crops and yields ( 34 ).…”

Section: Discussion: What Will It Take To Advance the Next Era Of Cro...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The next era of crop domestication starts now

Krug

Drummond

Tassel

et al. 2023

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Current food systems are challenged by relying on a few input-intensive, staple crops. The prioritization of yield and the loss of diversity during the recent history of domestication has created contemporary crops and cropping systems that are ecologically unsustainable, vulnerable to climate change, nutrient poor, and socially inequitable. For decades, scientists have proposed diversity as a solution to address these challenges to global food security. Here, we outline the possibilities for a new era of crop domestication, focused on broadening the palette of crop diversity, that engages and benefits the three elements of domestication: crops, ecosystems, and humans. We explore how the suite of tools and technologies at hand can be applied to renew diversity in existing crops, improve underutilized crops, and domesticate new crops to bolster genetic, agroecosystem, and food system diversity. Implementing the new era of domestication requires that researchers, funders, and policymakers boldly invest in basic and translational research. Humans need more diverse food systems in the Anthropocene—the process of domestication can help build them.

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“…CLC has been invoked as an example of multifunctional agriculture, or the simultaneous production of both ecosystem services and agricultural commodities (Jordan and Warner, 2010), and as a pathway to landscape level change toward more resilient agricultural systems (Runck et al, 2013). However, novel crops and cropping systems alone do not change food systems nor do they guarantee a more just and equitable system (Streit Krug and Tesdell, 2020). As such, CLC, as a suite of crops and cropping systems, must be distinguished from the approaches taken to move CLC into the landscape and the resulting socio-ecological systems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An agroecological turn in intermediating sustainability transitions with continuous living cover

Conway

2023

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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Continuous living cover's (CLC) perennial and winter annual crop varieties present a novel opportunity to increase the diversity and resiliency of agroecological systems in the Mid-Continent of North America. However, transforming the predominant agri-food regime remains a complex and daunting undertaking. In the face of such complexity, a recent body of literature highlights the particular importance of intermediaries in facilitating sustainability transition processes, which CLC agriculture's proponents can draw upon. Intermediaries can be defined as actors or organizations that positively influence sustainability transition processes by linking diverse entities, networks, institutions, activities and their related skills, knowledges, and resources. Simultaneously, agroecology, in the more political understanding of the term, can serve as an evaluative framework for agri-food transition processes to augment our understanding of intermediaries in sustainability transitions. This mini-review presents an overview of the emerging sustainability transition intermediary literature, an introduction to CLC agriculture's transition intermediaries, and the research gaps highlighted from an agroecological perspective. Integrating an agroecological lens attentive to the science, practice, and politics of intermediating agricultural transitions, this review proposes an adapted framework to understand and assess CLC agriculture's intermediaries. Thus, CLC agriculture presents a unique opportunity to iteratively draw upon and advance the sustainability transition intermediary literature.

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A social perennial vision: Transdisciplinary inquiry for the future of diverse, perennial grain agriculture

Abstract: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

Cited by 9 publications

References 47 publications

Grazed perennial grasslands can match current beef production while contributing to climate mitigation and adaptation

Grazed perennial grasslands can match current beef production while contributing to climate mitigation and adaptation

The next era of crop domestication starts now

An agroecological turn in intermediating sustainability transitions with continuous living cover

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