{"id":32441,"date":"2023-02-24T00:01:47","date_gmt":"2023-02-24T05:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/?p=32441"},"modified":"2023-02-23T17:52:50","modified_gmt":"2023-02-23T22:52:50","slug":"perennial-crops-identified-as-tools-to-fight-biodiversity-collapse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2023\/02\/perennial-crops-identified-as-tools-to-fight-biodiversity-collapse\/","title":{"rendered":"Perennial Crops Identified as Tools to Fight Biodiversity Collapse"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

(Beyond Pesticides<\/em>, February 24, 2023) Among the solutions to the dire state of global biodiversity<\/a> is, Civil Eats<\/em> reports<\/a>, perennial agriculture, which improves biodiversity both on- and off-farm. Increased adoption of perennial cropping provides critical on-farm habitat for many kinds of pollinators, insects, birds, and myriad additional creatures. Below ground, where plant roots remain active year-round, perennials create far-richer ecosystems for microbial communities and fungal networks. Planting annual crops \u2014 and often, the same ones year after year across huge swaths of acreage, as conventional agriculture generally does \u2014 leads to multiple bad outcomes: intensive synthetic pesticide and fertilizer use and the harms that flow from them; poor soils; erosion; inefficient holding and use of water; depleted carbon capacity; and a denuded above-soil landscape and diminished microbial, fungal, and nutrient environment below. Thus, perennial cropping boosts on-farm biodiversity as noted, and benefits off-farm biodiversity by reducing the unsavory impacts, on the broader environment, of traditional, chemically intensive, monoculture farming.<\/p>\r\n

Biodiversity loss<\/a> has emerged in the past decade as yet another crisis humanity faces \u2014 one that continues to go unaddressed at the level the loss requires<\/a>. Beyond Pesticides has written extensively about the crisis<\/a> and the central solution of ending the use of toxic, synthetic pesticides<\/a> ASAP, and certainly within the next decade. Doing so would eliminate one of the chief contributors to the diminution of biodiverse populations, and of pollinators, in particular.<\/p>\r\n

Speaking to the capacity of perennials to impact species, a chief scientist at the Kansas-based The Land Institute<\/a> (TLI) \u2014 which has conducted extensive and foundational work on perennial agriculture \u2014 Tim Crews, cuts to the chase<\/a>: \u201cA vegetated landscape is going to accommodate species that a tilled, denuded landscape as far as the eye can see does not. There are going to be a lot of species that take advantage of it.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

The Land Institute website notes<\/a>, \u201cMany fruit, forage, and some vegetable crops, including fruit trees, alfalfa, grapes, asparagus, and olive trees, are perennials that have been grown for thousands of years. The Land Institute is working to add perennial grains, legumes, and oilseed crops to the list.\u201d Among the perennial crops the institute is investigating and promoting are: Kernza\u00ae, a wheatgrass whose seeds provide grain, and whose foliage, post-harvest, can be forage for livestock.<\/p>\r\n

Research in 2022 in Frontiers in Plant Science<\/em> concludes that<\/a>, \u201cPerennial grain crops could make a valuable addition to sustainable agriculture, potentially even as an alternative to their annual counterparts. . . . Presently, perennial grain crops are not grown at large scale, mainly due to their early stages of domestication and current low yields.\u201d Yet TLI has made significant headway, especially with Kernza<\/a>, which has successfully moved into small, niche markets as a viable grain crop. The TLI researchers note<\/a> that the roots of this plant can extend as much as 10 feet into the soil, \u201cdelivering atmospheric carbon to the soil and efficiently taking up nutrients and water.\u201d They also say that its slender, long seed heads can, under good growing conditions, actually contain more seeds than a typical annual wheat head. The researchers are working, with each breeding cycle, to increase Kernza\u2019s seed size, which achievement would enhance its marketability.<\/p>\r\n

Agricultural perennials can include orchards (fruit and nut trees), row crops, agroforestry<\/a>, and integrated pasture lands (silvopasture<\/a>). In addition to the biodiversity benefits, perennials yield multiple soil, food security, and climate benefits. For the agricultural producer, they also, compared with annual crops:<\/p>\r\n