The importance — and potential weaknesses — of institutions devoted to perennial crops
What a thrill it is that Acres U.S.A. is focusing an entire issue to perennial crops! It is also a thrill to see how many relatively new players there are in the perennial systems arena — especially in the world of agroforestry, where trees, shrubs, crops and livestock are integrated in intentionally designed systems.
When I first started farming over 25 years ago, there was only one university in the country where agroforestry was taught (the University of Missouri’s Columbia Center for Agroforestry (centerforagroforestry.org), and there was just one agroforestry non-profit, the Association for Temperate Agroforestry (aftaweb.org), which at the time was a collection of former Peace Corps volunteers who had learned agroforestry overseas and brought their enthusiasm back home. The USDA National Agroforestry Center (fs.usda.gov/nac) is practically brand new, only being authorized in the 1990 Farm Bill; it didn’t become an official part of USDA until 1995.
As an early adopter whose agroforestry career has paralleled this timeline, I realized early on that in order for perennial farming and agroforestry to really flourish, the practices would have to be firmly rooted in institutions that would out-live individual farmers. Universities and non-profits would have to take up the work that would endure for generations. It is because of the efforts of the early adopters that we see such a wide range of universities, non-profit and for-profit consultants, designers and installers involved in agroforestry work today.
However, it is my opinion that this “institutionalizing” of agroforestry and perennial crops has come with a cost. It is becoming more and more apparent that many of the institutions that we early adopters enlisted to help promote the rapid adoption of agroforestry and perennial crops have become the strongest forces slowing it down. The free-wheeling experimentation and enthusiasm that was a hallmark of the “early days” of agroforestry is being held back by the very organizations that are supposed to be our biggest supporters.
The National Agroforestry Center is a good example. Despite the fact that the widespread adoption of agroforestry practices directly addresses 20 of Project Drawdown’s top 25 best solutions for the land- and food-based drawdown of atmospheric CO2 levels, (drawdown.org/solutions/table-of-solutions) the NAC is, in my opinion, overly cautious. At this time in human history, the National Agroforestry Center should be screaming at the top of their lungs, “We have answers!”
Widespread adoption of perennial crops is also being stifled by some non-profits. If you want to grow the Land Institute’s perennial wheat, Kernza, you must be licensed before buying, planting or marketing it. You must adhere to the trademark program and its associated Identity Preserved Program for the duration of your license. This is no different than Monsanto owning all of the rights to Roundup Ready technology. If perennial grains are a good idea, then let the innovative, courageous farmers have some seed, save their seed, and widely distribute it. Regenerative farmers are not timid. We don’t care that Kernza doesn’t yield the same as other wheat varieties or that there isn’t an elevator market for it yet — we can sell it! We can tell the story of how American farmers shifted to a perennial crop and generated a zillion new varieties from the original within a matter of years, because we were given the freedom to do so.
This is being done in the woody crops realm as well. Non-profits populated by brilliant and ambitious freshly minted Ph.D.’s talk about how we’re “all in this together” (yet they don’t farm) and that everything is “open source.” In my experience, though, open source only lasts until until there are plant genetics that are patentable.
I grow American-derived hybrid bush hazelnuts. It took years of hard work and collaboration before we hazelnut growers finally got research support from the University of Minnesota and University of Wisconsin Extension. There is a whole host of information available on hybrid hazelnuts, participatory research & development, and even enterprise budgets. These extension services are doing important research concerning an innovative new crop, yet these organizations are telling growers to not plant yet because they don’t believe we have the right varieties!
Their data may be correct, but their conclusion is not. Here are some hazelnut economics.
First of all, the experts say to spend one year burning down all the weeds in a field with herbicide, then subsoil the whole field, then finish with a disk. Then plant a cover crop and add potassium sulfate and triple super phosphate. Notably, their calculations don’t include the cost of the equipment needed to do this or the cost of a lost year of crops that you could have harvested from that field.
Then, you plant 6-inch-tall micro-propagated plantlets (genetically identical clones), which aren’t even available to the public yet, 726 plants to the acre. Drip irrigation is then installed with two emitters to each plant. One tenth of a cubic yard of woodchip mulch is then applied around each plant. For the next four years you meticulously spot-apply herbicide by hand, weed whip what you missed with the sprayer, keep the alleys between rows of plants mowed like a lawn, and add 80 pounds of urea nitrogen per year. You spray the plants with deer repellant as needed, and you finally begin to harvest a few nuts in year four.
The experts’ analysis of costs and yields leads them to conclude that growing hazelnuts east of Oregon is not economical because the varieties that we have available (with plants we can actually buy) don’t exist yet; therefore they need more research money!
Their data is probably correct, but their conclusion should merely be that THIS method of growing hazelnuts east of Oregon is not profitable!
If, however, you were to plant 1,000 stems per acre of bare-root dormant hazelnut seedlings from our nursery or one like it, you would actually be able to order them and plant them next spring. You would not have to give up growing crops the year before. You would not have to spray the herbicide, and you would only need drip irrigation in an emergency if it doesn’t rain — and if you did install irrigation, you could use T-tape and gravity drip it from a poly tank on a hay wagon.
You could grow vegetables in one third of the alleys, which in most states can easily net $3,000 per acre. Weed control and fertility for the vegetables takes care of the hazelnuts. One third of the alleys could be a small-grain cover-crop grown for poultry feed and soil-building. The final third could be pasture for the poultry, or beef, or perhaps a mix of prairie flowers grown for seed and honey from the bees. The whole system would rotate through the alleys between hazelnut plants, and you will have profited through the four years when the Ph.D. growers only had expenses.
Perennial crops are here to stay (they’re perennial, after all!). Universities and non-profits alike are doing extremely good research, and that needs to continue. I encourage all of you farmers to read what they have to say and glean what valuable information you can. Just be aware of some of the limitations of such institutions. And keep on striving to be creative, knowledgeable eco-farmers, growing the most nutrient-dense, delicious food the world has ever known!
