Perennial Grains Food Security for the Future: Developing Perennial Versions of Our Major Grain Crops Would Address Many of the Environmental Limitations of Annuals While Helping to Feed an Increasingly Hungry Planet‪.‬

Colorful fruits and vegetables piled to overflowing at a farmers market or in the produce aisle readily come to mind when we think about farming and food production. Such images run counter to those of environmental destruction and chronic hunger and seem disconnected from the challenges of climate change, energy use, and biodiversity loss. Agriculture, though, has been identified as the greatest threat to biodiversity and ecosystem function of any human activity. And because of factors including climate change, rising energy costs, and land degradation, the number of "urgently hungry" people, now estimated at roughly 1 billion, is at its highest level ever. More troubling, agriculture-related problems will probably worsen as the human population expands--that is, unless we reshape agriculture. The disconnect between popular images of farming and its less rosy reality stems from the fact that fruits and vegetables represent only a sliver of farm production. Cereal, oilseed, and legume crops dominate farming, occupying 75% of U.S. and 69% of global croplands. These grains include crops such as wheat, rice, and maize and together provide more than 70% of human food calories. Currently, all are annuals, which means they must be replanted each year from seed, require large amounts of expensive fertilizers and pesticides, poorly protect soil and water, and provide little habitat for wildlife. Their production emits significant greenhouse gases, contributing to climate change that can in turn have adverse effects on agricultural productivity.