Restoring the tall grass prairie

At ASLE two years ago, I heard Wes Jackson  (“The Elvis Presley of the Environmental Movement”) speak about The Land Institute, which is restoring the Konza Prairie in Kansas by replacing annuals with perennials (this visual makes pretty clear why this is necessary--these are life-size images of a wheat plant on the left, and a newly developed variety of perennial grain, Kernza, on the right).

 Wes said that traditional agriculture—planting and harvesting annuals--was “the bomb,” the “big mistake,” because it’s like clear-cutting every year. (“The plowshare destroyed more than the sword! This is the danger of the metaphor—and why you have to be careful about the metaphors you use!”)