The need for a 50-year farm bill

Background/Question/Methods

We have the scientific knowledge, data and techniques, plus enough cultural information left from before the heavy industrialization of agriculture that we can largely correct the wrong turn our species took 11-13 millennia ago. Though we cannot return to the crossroads where our ancestors took that wrong turn, we can accomplish something never before done in the history of our species on a large space and time scale. We can make “conservation a consequence of food production.”

Five-year farm bills address primarily exports, commodities and therefore subsidies along with food programs. A 50-year farm bill would address soil erosion, fossil fuel dependence for food, toxins in soil/water, nitrogen management, dead zone reduction and restoring an agrarian way of life.

Results/Conclusions

The primary feature of the 50-year farm bill for the U.S. would be an increase in acreage of perennials from the current 20 percent to 80 percent. At the outset, more perennials in rotations, but also perennializing the major crops to be grown in mixtures where possible and practical.

The goal for perennializing the landscape has been primary at The Land Institute for the past three decades. The research agenda and positive results have greatly accelerated over the past ten years. The possibility of a mostly perennialized agricultural landscape globally can now be seen as matching the necessity.