Developing cropping systems that produce food and ecosystem services.
D. WYSE (1). (1) Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, U.S.A.
Over the last half century, ‘Green Revolution’ technologies have dramatically enhanced crop yields, but because of the emphasis on annual row cropping systems these increases have often come at the expense of food security and sustainability. Globally, many fear that agriculture is nearing a tipping point, with concerns that population pressure, declining natural capital, and diminished ecosystem service delivery will reduce global food security. As a result, a new Green Revolution is needed – a ‘Forever Green Revolution’ – that embraces continuous living cover on working lands through the development of a new suite of high yielding perennial (intermediate wheatgrass, sunflower, hazelnuts) and winter annual (pennycress, winter rye, winter barley) crops that provide economic return and improve multiple ecosystem services. By adding such crops to agricultural systems we can: enhance agricultural productivity, support rural economic development, and provide major environmental benefits to all citizens. Because these systems have longer growing seasons, they are able to capture more solar energy, water, and nutrients than purely annual systems and may be able raise crop yields, produce new high-value commodities (food, feed, and biomaterials), enhance soil quality, provide wildlife habitat, increase species biodiversity, and improve water resources. To accomplish a ‘Forever Green’ landscape, we propose three significant shifts in thinking: 1) focus public plant breeding programs on development of crops that provide continuous living cover and high-value commodities 2) diversify and enhance agricultural stakeholder engagement in sustainable enterprise development, and 3) reevaluation of concepts of production and efficiency in agricultural systems.
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