The commercial agriculture industry in the United States relies on high yields from annual crops, most of which are single-variety and the only crop grown on a given plot of land all year.
Soil erosion and nutrient degradation have become so pronounced that researchers are concerned about the long-term viability of the industry. Global warming has also drawn more attention to this issue, as annual crops leave land barren for much of the year, damaging the land’s natural ability to act as a carbon sink; to make matters worse, the intensive fertilization and pesticide application necessary to new seeds every spring is heavily reliant on petroleum-derived products, thus feeding in to the industry on which the global warming debate is centered.
The Land Insitute of Kansas sees perennial crops as a partial solution to this problem: perennial rootstock defends against soil erosion, enhances biodiversity, reduces the leaching of chemicals into the water table, conserves water, and – most importantly to some – provides the sort of carbon sequestration of which we have such urgent need.
Author Steven Johnson, in an interview with Gourmet Magazine, likens the potential effects of perennial crops on commerical agriculture to that of hybrid vehicles on the auto industry: they may not be a solution to the problem posed by our dwindling fossil fuels, but they may provide a way to lend greater sustainability to our current way of life.
See: Gourmet Magazine, September 2007, “Against the Grain”
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