"Paying for Perennialism" by Sarah Whelchel and Elizabeth
Popp Berman (Issues, Fall 2011) calls attention to an important area of
research that, if successful in its goals, will enhance agricultural
sustainability in the face of the growing world demand for food and the
many challenges of a changing climate. Although past research to develop
perennial grains has been slowgoing, today's genomics-based tools
are enabling breeders to work much faster and attempt ambitious projects
not previously possible.
The article understates the role that federal research is playing
to move perennialism forward. Since the early 1900s, research has
provided new tools to identify ideal traits in plants and more
efficiently breed them into crops. The U.S. Department of
Agriculture's (USDAs) Agricultural Research Service (ARS) has not
only had a formative role in the recent developments and applications of
agricultural genomic technology, but has contributed to a wide range of
other advances, helping keep our farms productive and our food system
safe and secure. This research complements and supports related research
by public, private, and foundation partners.
Although the USDA is facing the same budget challenges felt across
the nation, researchers are certainly not "walking away from work
on perennials," as the article suggests. There are formidable
challenges to developing crop perennial types with winter hardiness,
substantial yields, pest protection traits, and desired end-use
qualities. The technical ability to dissect the genetic basis of
perennialism and to apply breeding advances that are working so
successfully in annual crops is only now becoming possible. At ARS, we
are initiating research on the application of new technologies,
including whole genome sequencing, genome-wide association studies, and
rapid genetic selection methods, to perennial improvement.
ARS plant geneticists such as Ed Buckler (co-located at Cornell
University) are leading the effort to make perennial corn production a
reality. Among a broad array of crop genetic improvement projects,
Buckler and his team are working to dissect perennialism by exploiting
new genomic information and inexpensive DNA sequencing. They are also
initiating experiments with Tripsacum, a genus closely related to the
corn genus, Zea, to clone the genes needed for winter tolerance in the
U.S. Midwest.
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In Raleigh, North Carolina, ARS maize geneticist James Holland is
working to design a breeding scheme to develop perennial corn, exploring
the possibilities of intercrossing domesticated corn and its perennial
relative wild teosinte.
In North Dakota, Fargo-based ARS scientist Jason Farris is
discovering domestication genes in wheat and Brett Hulke is evaluating
perennials in the USDA sunflower germplasm collection for disease
resistance and working with crop breeders to introduce these genes into
cultivated sunflower.
Work on perennials is also happening at other ARS laboratories
across the country, in places such as Lincoln, Nebraska; Griffin,
Georgia; and Kear-neysville, West Virginia. While improving crops
through genomics and breeding techniques is the first step in getting
new varieties into the hands of producers, research will also be needed
to determine how improved perennials respond to different agronomic
practices and natural resource management to ensure that the potential
represented in genetically improved crops is ally achieved while
ensuring sustainable production.
Underlying all crop improvement research are the conserved genetic
resources in the National Plant Germplasm System, which includes
perennial grain accessions. This extensive USDA collection, which
importantly involves our land-grant university partners, is used by
plant breeders across the nation and world to enhance the potential of
crops, with benefits to our food security, food safety, nutrition, and
the environment--far beyond the "well-worn path of agricultural
research and production" stereotype of maximizing yields at all
cost, as suggested in the article.
USDA research on perennialism is but one part of a much larger
portfolio of agricultural science that is taking a multipronged approach
to solving critical food, agricultural, natural resource, and
sustainability challenges faced by the United States and the world.
Conducted and/or supported by ARS and its sister USDA agency, the
National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the broad agricultural
science portfolio of USDA and its partners is coordinated by USDA Chief
Scientist Catherine Woteki.
Within this system, particular roles of ARS are to conduct
long-term, high-reward research supporting a diversity of production
system approaches and engage in precommercial, foundational research
where the private sector is not involved.
There is always more that can and must be done to advance this
research. In the face of a growing global population and growing demand
for food, sustainability will require the kinds of technological
innovation that only result from dedication and coordination. Achieving
sustainability also requires sustained investment, and now more than
ever agricultural research needs continued and enhanced public support.
Smart investments in agricultural research today will pay dividends to
our world tomorrow.
ED KNIPLING
Administrator
Agricultural Research Service
U.S. Department of Agriculture Washington, DC
Wes Jackson and I share a common theme, enjoying life in our
seventh decade. And we both come from Midwestern farm stock, he from
Kansas and I from Iowa. Wes, however, grew up in wheat country, and I
was in corn country. Maybe this is why I did not catch Wess dream of
perennialism earlier in my professional career spanning over five
decades of soil science and related fields.
It was only when I moved beyond the halls of peer-reviewed academia
to direct the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture that I could
see Wess forest. Now it is obvious that a perennial agriculture has a
place in row crop agriculture, even in Iowa, where almost all the
cultivated land is in corn and soybeans, and heaven help the poor farmer
who might suggest otherwise at the local coffee shop.
Neither Wes nor I would, I think, advocate a 100% perennial
landscape if we are serious about food crop production and maintaining
economic viability. But the current barren land-scape would greatly
benefit by patches of perenniality that will also provide food and
income. In fact, that was the agriculture of old, the one of Grant Wood
paintings. Pasture dotted the hilly land, alfalfa (a three- to four-year
rotation legume perennial) supported dairy herds, and beef herds and
trees lined the streams. Fence rows that kept the neighbors cattle from
straying were filled with diverse plants harboring beneficial insects.
Except for a few pockets of sanity, those landscapes are gone and
probably will not return. Driven by economics, the big industrial farm
stranglehold on agriculture has pushed soil erosion over tolerable
limits, loaded the streams with sediment and nitrate, and depopulated
the countryside. We have created an agriculture so risky that when
things go wrong, as they often do in a world of changing climate,
agriculture is too big to fail and must be a major part of the federal
farm bill.
Perennials could fill a huge void here. They would add diversity,
both financial and biological. If used wisely, proper perennial crops
would greatly lower erosion. Carbon sequestration would be greatly
enhanced. Benefits would be huge beyond the costs. But it is obvious
that big federal research dollars will not go to perennial crops, no
matter how much pleading is done and appeals to common sense are made by
well-meaning folks. But that does not mean that there are not pockets of
excellence out there in the research plots and labs of the land grant
universities and the USDA.
Visionaries such as Wes Jackson are needed in this world even more
than ever. But we are not training visionaries nor allowing them even to
dream. Instead, they publish or perish, pile up grant dollars to fill an
ever-deepening portfolio black hole, and are rewarded with who's
who plaques. So who will be the dreamers of the future? The National
Science Foundation should try to identify them now and get them headed
on the road to saving our world, because academia is not doing it very
well.
DENNIS KEENEY
Professor Emeritus, Iowa State University
Senior Fellow, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Minneapolis, Minnesota drkeeney@iastate.edu