Plant breeders, farmers and political advocates point to climate change as a tremendous challenge to food crop resilience during an Ecofarm workshop. From left: Wes Jackson, The Land Institute; Douglas Gurian-Sherman, Union of Concerned Scientists; Theresa Podoll, Prairie Road Farm; Renata Brillinger, California Climate and Agriculture Network.

Climate change promises to put near unimaginable stress on the planet as it intensifies, and that prospect has two agricultural thinkers pondering its potential impact on our food supply.

Wes Jackson, head of the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, says perennial grains and legumes may be one aid in reducing the environmental degradation feeding climate change. Theresa Podoll, an organic seed producer from Fullerton, North Dakota, says we need to diversify our plant breeding programs to help ensure our food crops can adapt to evolving climatic conditions.

Podoll and Jackson were panelists at a plant breeding and climate change workshop during the Ecofarm Conference in Pacific Grove, California earlier this year.

Jackson, a McArthur Fellow and a geneticist, has dedicated 30 years to breeding viable perennial grains. Jackson says perennial grains, planted in a bio-diverse mix, can provide multiple environmental benefits that could slow climate change. A perennial crop needs less tillage, meaning less soil erosion and fewer tractors burning fuel. Perennial grains and legumes will store carbon-based plant residue in the soil, which means there will be less carbon in the atmosphere aggravating climate change.  With roughly 70 percent of US cropland growing grains, an evolution to perennial grains could be significant.    

Jackson says the Land Institute breeding program shows real promise, but marketable seed is still a decade away.

“The Land Institute will probably have its first perennial wheat relative going out the door in ten to twelve years. We’re eating the flour now and we just planted 126 acres of it, harvested 30 acres last year. We’ll plant more next year,” says Jackson, adding that the Land Institute, with a handful of plant researchers on staff, is simply too small to develop and grow enough seed to fuel the transition.

Jackson says it’ll take a solid investment in plant breeding from the federal government to move his concept forward, and to make that happen, farmers, plant breeders and other researchers as well as consumers will have to, in his words, “get political.” Along with fellow sustainable agriculture advocates Fred Kirschenmann and Wendell Berry, Jackson last year crafted a political proposal he calls a 50-year Farm Bill. Given that most farm bills in the US run five to seven years, his plan, focused on support for the perennial grains and legumes concept, will require a huge political push to catch hold in Washington, DC.

Hear more on Wes
Jackson's vision for
perennial agriculture

jackson soundbite

1 min 14 sec

Theresa Podoll agrees there is a need for political action to bring federal support to plant breeding activities, but she says farmers, consumers, plant breeders and others need to be clear that federal backing must ensure the results of the breeding efforts remain in the public domain and accessible to all breeders and growers. At present, breeding programs at many state and federal research institutions are conducted with financial backing from private industry, and that often ends up restricting availability of research results and seed.

Podoll says using federal dollars to develop genetically engineered plants, which are then patented by corporations, is not in the public interest. She says the practice restricts germ plasm availability and narrows genetic diversity. Podoll says genetically engineered seed encourages monoculture production practices, which lessen biodiversity and make the food system less resilient in times of environmental stress. 

Hear more about Podoll’s thoughts on genetically engineered seed

podoll soundbite

1 min 33 sec

In Podoll’s view, breeding efforts should start in the grass roots with the farmers themselves, working with local and regional researchers to develop crops acclimated to specific regions and growing conditions.

“The farmer needs to be engaged with the seed production system and the plant breeding system in order to provide that local adaptation. So the farmer needs to be working with the scientific community in his locale, specifically plant breeders, and plant breeders that are working in the public domain so the germ plasm they develop is open to others to work with the material and produce a system for continual improvement,” says Podoll.

“The role of the federal government is to enable that work, to make it possible.  The public’s investment is to provide research and support for public domain work that will benefit the public directly. Devoting federal dollars to proprietary research and supporting proprietary seed systems that are restrictive and carry intellectual property with them is not in the public’s best interest,” Podoll says.

Podoll says farmer-centric plant breeding efforts are evolving. She says results of such efforts need to be brought to the attention of policy makers and held up as examples of efficient and cost effective plant breeding programs that provide maximum returns to the public.