thank you for that Steve
well at it's nice to be here for you folks have
rain spent dry
a out on the great plains I
were not right next to Texas but we're close enough
to close up
I won't editorialize yet I'll
well it is a pleasure to be here and
I've been here before up some
out of fifteen years ago ten years ago
and drive-through so on
so I'm not a stranger you folks aren't strangers either
let's hope I am I would've been thinking about this talk quite a bit
and I had a talk
noon today and you sure don't want to have to repeat yourself
and so I want to do my best not to
I'll I thought I'd tell you a little bit what set me off
in 1977 I had been
reading that general accounting office study on the efficacy
love a the soil erosion her so Conservation Service
and the way I read it it looked to me like soil erosion was as bad in 1977
as well and the sole Conservation Service was formed to
and the the mid-thirties was called the soil erosion service them
and as under roosevelt
and I you haven't bet wasn't energetic and a match they've started guy and
a roosevelt made him the founding cheap
have the service and I
thought you know here's something that job
thousands of miles terraces
grassed waterways I am
Wellington break good said no organizations been put together
with more esprit de corps devoted to the common task of saving our soils
a all the way from the stenographers to the PHD's in soil science
I read somewhere once I've not been able to find it sets but I don't doubt it
that 17 the total federal budget
was devoted to soil and water conservation now that's back during the
eighties
a CCC days so it's easy to imagine
up that be in that
Chuck at the budget and I so
quite I so that giao study at that you know something's
something's wrong here back in those days I had interns
and we had a trip a
made a trip to the Konza Prairie which is just sixty miles
a long I seven they up the road from saline a
and he Lloyd Hobart
who was ecologist really good grassland ecologists
gave us a wonderful field trip that day and a
as I was sitting there listening to the students
ask Lloyd questions and looking at that prairie
and what the general accounting office study in mind
you know he resists prairie that was running on contemporary sunlight
it was featuring material recycling
it didn't experience it happened at damn ICT
fixed it so night region and
you know you can see right down the road card and sorghum and sunflowers and
wheat and so on all dependent upon
the extractive economy but fossil fuels
putting to chemicals out there that are tissues have no evolutionary experience
with
and and soil erosion
and so are a
that sorta what set me off taking
is it possible to build an agriculture based on the way that Perry works
well the
so I wrote a paper and 78 her
yeah 78 and I said and I think we can do it this is after I called around to sum
up my
buddies that were the geneticists and ecologists and
you know I got the usual response i get for my friends
a the last year
with your crazy but now this is completely nuts
everybody knows that you can't get pretty well as a man high seed yield to
go together
don't you know about the RMK selection formula
and the trade-off theory and this that and the other
and a I have to tell you it keeps you awake at night
I am wonder and have if
maybe this just as crazy a
well a anyway somehow or another
we persevered in I published a book called the rich for agriculture came out
1980
and up a I got up phone call
a actually I got a letter from Wendell Berry
pleading with me to change my mind
about tractors running on biofuels instead
include horses a and my
I had that the last chapter there outside the solar believes
a a sunshine farm and
so I wrote him back thank him for his critique can
you know when when does said anything in those days I was prepared to cave and
do just exactly what you want me to do so I included horses
the next time jobs but the
he was so pleased with my accommodation up his critique that he called me up and
they came out and we
had a a I got to be frames
and the been friends ever sense
a but then I we build a greenhouse
and now so I invited wendell to come and I'm
dedicate that greenhouse and he gave one of the most useful talks
that I've ever heard and a top ahead to do
with the history up hilemon's looking to
nature as a standard
or major and so when dole
though what right back in the literary tradition
to up well to up Joe
and I'm in fact summary just a little about
what wendell said a I think it's on
scale here it is he said the
he began by quoting Joe is what jobs said
as now the beasts and they show teach the
and the POW's up the air and they shall tell the
or speak to the air that it shall teach the
and the fish is up the sea showed a clear under the
well after Joel I then Virgil
a little over two thousand years ago and this is at the beginning up the G or
checks
this is 36 29 BC
Abergele instructs asked that before we plow on
familiar patch it is well to be informed about the wins
about the variations in the sky
the native traits and habits up the plates
what each locale permits at what denies
well then when dole jump forward to have
the end of the 16th century a
with edmund Spenser who called nature
the equal mother up all creatures
who noticed each to each as brother and two brother
and Spencer also so nature is an instructor of creatures
and the oldham at earthly judge at their behaviors
well window contended that Bain & included at it he
mention shakespeare and as you like it
you'll remember and shakespearian he has the forest judge
a it's in the role of the teacher and a judge
and then melted a
and I'm Co moves has the lady say about nature
she good caterers maynes her probation
only to the good that live it according to her sober laws
at Holy dictate spare temperance
and finally Alexander Pope and his epistle to Burlington
Council gardeners to quote let nature do never beeper got
consulted the genius up the place
in all know where those says intersting
thing there spend most useful
princezz the Romantic poets
after that a used the the British English poets
use nature only as a reservoir assembles
not having any practical value
just a kinda way of showing off their literary stuff I guess
don't say that welded say that I'm sayin that
I so a
and then this is the most interesting point
I wendell says after pope
Alexander Pope they
idea update your having practical value goes underground
in the formal cult culture
and when it pops up again it's among scientists
Liberty Hyde Bailey in the holy earth
I Sir Albert Howard
and I also we had some
well J Russell Smith then
here's I think early this the brilliant insight he says
they in the formal culture
the idea nature having practical value for us
calms as a series
but it it comes as a six-session
in the common culture
that takes a little while to digest that in the common culture it's running along
like a stream
always there but it doesn't pop up
in the formal culture among the literary people or the scientists except in a
series
hope you ya got that
alright so I am after
the these different job
poke that have been creating the series
one would think that with you haven't bet
and the so Conservation Service that finally we have it institutionalized
that nature is a major because bennett set time and again
we always look to nature we ask nature
he says that in just one speech after another
and a so what's going wrong here
I if we still have these problems
the is it here was our opportunity for
the formal culture to have
get from now on but in my view
now now
I want to shift gears here just a little bit
and give you an illustration of what I mean by consulting
the genius over the place in all
up back in the nineteen-thirties
in the Great Plains there's the famous dust bowl
and I'm their is
lot of studies that were done during that time I'm gonna pick that particular
graduate student at the University of Nebraska that was working on a master's
degree
his last name is not all you know L L he is working with the famous
weaver's above the weaver and Clements
clemency and ecology something we all know about
had no that have to be the driest year on record I think maybe 1932
and he was out to a look at the preceptor tation and what was happening
to the vegetation and he compared
a he compared a never plowed nadie prairie
at to an end Jason quit field and look measured everything from
temperatures at various heights depp's where though
how much water there was and so on well
all the up wheat plants died
but the prairie came back
the local genius up that places the prairie
now that has to do with the water management system
now go with May 2 a tropical rainforest
their water is a nemesis 2 per te liddy
because the leaching downward a
takes the nutrients below so
the forest is designed to is
a balkan to receive the water
and get rid of it fast
there's the local genius there so
when pope says
consult the genius up the place at all now Pope was a gardener
and actually that poem had a great effect on their
a from thereafter on english gardening
and backed up our work area a gardener could be
fired on the spot if he or she had not consulted the local genius
read that poem is very long poem but don't read it all
just read like to a and
it's a complicated poll you want somebody that are set out in
and and bloke if you don't get it
seven hits a its it's ok for me it was a difficult call
so so here we have
I a world
and as I mentioned that the talk at noon
have that 10,000 years ago
a you know sensually all about nature's land-based
ecosystems talking about the I spree to land at the planet
feature perennials grown in mixtures
essentially all there are plenty of examples around that
represent the exception I
and when we started agriculture by
with the week plant first about the eastern end of the Mediterranean Hauritz
dry and out with the retrieve the ice
a the place to see nice a
the a that's where the week plant was found at
Palin has a gross mountains of western Iran
and that's the beginning love up and y'all
tale agriculture which means that
if you're going to I
get your seat that germinate yet gotta
destroyed the vegetation
at the surface and there's the beginning of the idea
that nature's to be subdued or ignored
so it's interesting to see how to thank al this idea
looking to nature manages to persist
when well now seventy percent of our calories
some seventy percent of our agricultural a creature's devoted
at two and y'all grains
they a as the the
grasses at the lake and Germans are primarily grass seed eaters
at the second there early Lakeview seed eaters but this idea
has persisted so
quite a I think we need to do
is to Sol the 10,000 year old problem a biker culture
and we can do it now we can do it now
especially now because %uh the computational power that's available
because if some love the a techniques that have been developed
that allow us to have molecular markers
a we're not doing GM owes the
a we start with the idea in
a that perennial ASM is a way of life
there's no gene for perennial its you don't just find the gene for prey on
park at the end
it serves you know spread across the Gino
it's a way up be and so
mostly it's just break that we're talking about so
I'm going to show you some slides and and I'm
a I'm going to a say some more
a where it were in Seoul their saliva Kansas
I we have about well about 630 acres
and we have by over
hundred acres so Perry that's never been plowed
I we jest at the end of this month will close on a thirty-seven
acre prairie that is the westernmost
tall grass prairie that is bottom land prairie
and so we look at the prairie
as the standard or major and so we take a lot of data
there to learn about the dynamics and then hope to
mimic and up %uh that structure ISO
that's a Land Institute and where oh well we're I'll
31 people work there in the summertime
39 or 40 and a and the
a we have a lot of a lot of fun
a now
a my kids
a are all grown and married and have children of their own and are able to
get
even for me I the children are
I'll they jobs sometimes that the
meal table they would say what they had to explain that my baby this time
don't go back to the Big Bang I'll
that's one of their lives another one is
a and so Doctor Doom what can we as ordinary citizens do about this problem
up but I'm gonna go this site at the Big Bang
heighth because I think it's important for us to get a context up what's put us
in this particular position and I call it the 3.45 billion year
parity the fact that we are I'll
biotic that that the all
organisms are carbon-based and so
we go after energy-rich carpet or recreate it
and we've been doing that for 3.45 billion years
so a I
but then ten some ten and eleven thousand years ago
we started getting the young pulverized coal up the soil
with annual tale agriculture
at that is what started several is Asian I also think that's when global
warming began climate change began and then we got the poorest
in order to sponsor the Bronze Age
and the Iron Age and I recommend that you have read lately the FA Cup
Gilgamesh
at how Inc I do and Gilgamesh went out to kill the
the giant up the for us and then after he was killed why then they
up the you know they set the war the wood cutters
lose and so that's that's where
mythology but you could said there's probably a bump in population
when we got into the four so that was the eastern end of the Mediterranean we
know that was going on the time I solomon
he struck a deal with the King a tire have to buy the Cedars of Lebanon
to build the temple so the
so the the cutting out the forest just continued and
you know by the time of Charlemagne an enlightened but the ruler the onslaught
of the force was well underway
so we just spent going and summer that Pourcel and then became cropland and
then the erosion
of course attenuate well then the third
cool up carbon is the coal
at two hundred and fifty years ago and then natural gas to bed around
up well goes all the way back to
the Oracle at Delphi that Plame that
that that to work all that always spoke with a kinda
ambiguity a you know telling
creases if you make war against the Persians a great kingdom of all
increases made work against the purges a great came to bail
here's a he wouldn't like the Hebrew prophets you know they'd say P do this
you got to get
that a the Greeks had a different way up
they were more like modern politicians up
and then the the oil love 1859 and
not long after that natural gas start being used for power
so those five pools of energy-rich carbon because
up in my view the 3.45 billion you're a parrot
with not practice restraint so
this is the context a bus so I C
agriculture is where it all began and
ill see I hope by the end that I think that's where the correction
bus began because as my friend chuck washburn said the late chuck washburn
said if we don't get sustainability and agriculture first it's not gonna happen
we got a goal right back to back so
I I like to show this slide to remind people this is Brian goes 1565
the harvesters I like it partly because always wonder are those people shorter
as the week tall
at at its probably both I
but you see there the apple and pear trees
and their land up
to let the light and and look at that percent at that landscape
that is devoted to the grain the percent up the egg landscape
this is just to emphasize they were primarily grass seed eaters
now
it's amazing when we thank God
how this same here
was not to differ from a settler same
that we could have had in the early nineteen hundred's
but somewhere
after world war two things began to change
here you can see the rising up the pesticide industry
I'll not rachel's Carson 1962
the pesticide industry is doubled and doubled again
any interest up us getting energy-rich car but
it's sorta like bacteria on a petri dish
I that if there's sugar there
they just go for it so
and here is nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer
the nitrogen is the blue I read is
our water and a green as the Bosphorus going back again to about
1948 so
here are the slopes after world war two
we really change the world
I'll and industrialized societies
I mean I'm I'm 75 now
and it it it's amazing when I consider
that in my lifetime ninety-nine percent up all the oil ever burned has been
burnt
the 10-year-old has lived through a quarter
up all the oil ever burnt
the 22-year-old 54 percent up all the oil ever burn
so the speed that this is coming on as like a lotta curves
starter out rather slowly and then and then build
and of course here's the diesel tank
I mean the farm I i was born on had horses
we had horses I remember when we got the tractors
up and then up course the most important inventions of the 20th century
and 99 to germans
brits harbor and Kara boss learned how to
turn take nitrogen atmospheric nitrogen and turn it into ammonia
it takes anywhere from have to twice as many
fossil fuel calories to sponsor nitrogen fertility
in america's feels as we use for traction
so it takes you know some like 350
I a the Greek a
atmospheres and 400 degrees C
in order to have these
this nitrogen available for are
fields so once again we go after
the energy-rich carbon because it's a natural gas as a feedstock
well what do we do with it here is
quite was in tel soy beans became an important crop
the number one killer on the planet apartment
core this is an lol
I'll it within one year from seventy million bushels an acre
290 million a bushels an acre
a
I feel another digression coming on
I gotta say this 26 gallons a gasoline has the same number of calories that the
average american
eats in a year
let's say we don't eat for a year and turn all over
food in the ethanol that's two gallons a month the purse
and let's say we take all the corn stocks in all
peanut shells and all the grass clippings and
week stroll and so on and turn that into at the No
maybe another two gallons and stop all exports
depends on how you calculate it another one and a half to two gallons
and a huge subsidy
right around six billion dollars
this year I'm
we go after energy-rich carbon and we'll do it
that the cost the energy-rich carbon that's how
Nettie we can be as a result at 3.45 billion here parity
so there is more than that there is
this which is really I think the number one killer now
the both of those systems leak nitrogen there
only about anywhere from a third to a half with the nitrogen
mistaken up the rest through the system
and if you look at a satellite photo
the upper midwest this is I was in Minnesota
and the the brass kazan their of Minnesota's at the top in the mail you
know their brand you folks know your state's
a alright good I thought maybe over he didn't care whether we've had anything
the other side of the mountain
a everything so wonderful I mean what do we have this Oregon Trail for in the
first place anyway
me makes bit makes person wonder you know
well look at that imagine now
that the goal for Mexico us out there
and that's the rains come about the time you prepare the fields for corn and
soybeans
this is not a uncommon picture
somebody asked me what I would do if I had abacha heads a foundation says
what I would do in order to convince them not to put him on a bus
and drive them through Iowa Illinois and Indiana
and a pearl and may
and make him hang their head out the window
a without any cell phones
now we have minimum chill no tail
and that's supposed to stop the soil erosion
yes so here's Clearwater coming off a minimum till
no tail and the Milky water is from a conventional field
a looks pretty good except you take a sample that water out at that too
and this by the way came from a man until no tail
a researcher at
well thank you sir pullman now
but a its twice the
acceptable EPA level for nitrogen coming out of that too
annual systems leak
and so at the end you have a dead zone
a as though result I'll all that nitrogen
coming all that dead zones about the size and New Jersey
all right there's that now here's the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report
UN-sponsored assessment stay at the planet
there it is agriculture's the largest threat to biodiversity and ecosystem
function up
any single human activity i think im primarily I think I love
ugly head grade agriculture and considering what's going on
in Brazil in and
this is Chris fields paper in science no one
in most parts of the world human activities and agriculture in particular
have resulted in decreases and net primary productivity
from the levels that likely existed prior to him and management
now that's good news for those of us that are looking to the ecosystem
and from the point of view are breeders that are involved in reallocation
a photo sent a so
it where Maj in the world before agriculture
featuring a perennial mixtures
up almost everywhere on land
whether it's a rainforest or desert scrub
or here as one of our typical prairies a Kansas
this is the plant Hills a Kansas
this has never been plowed
but tens of thousands of acres
that a actually
anywhere from 2.2 to 2.4 pounds will be put on
a steer in the summertime per day
on these warm season grasses big blue stab little blue stem and then grass
switch grass blue grama harry grabbed
so on very nutritious
that erode beyond replacement levels
natural replacement level so that's our standard
so what we're about to land mostly is
plant were mostly plant breeders was I'm ecology
will be adding the ecologists a
we've had ecologists and will be Adam I'll
so for instance where cross
the annual weighed on the lapd with a perennial relative on the right we get a
hybrid
a and way
jobs in the greenhouse
we have course you have to emasculate
a clipped the anthers with tiny little sensors
and the make the crosses all the crosses with the weights are done at the
greenhouse
sometimes you all
lot of times had some %uh these white crosses
you'll get the embryo to form but you won't have the endosperm
farm and so we rescue the embryo
the land that students big on embryo rescue were pro-life
atlanta's to her we rescue more embryos
the state of Kansas than anybody up
they are a but you can see here some other these crosses after
harvest why you get some shoes coming up so we say okay we've got
that's something that's worth paying attention to sum up don't make it though
you can see up one of our plants we call kerns a
is a perennial that were domesticating and I'm
I think maybe I wanna show you a photograph
a well the sole if that this
you doing alright with this the plant at the top is the great Platte
that started civilization the one on the bottom has the kind the plant that'll
save it
a so here these root cert NP
law at this plant is about 14 months old
so look at it as and best bet
now there'll be some slopping I'll but
up we the especially with our perennial sorghum one thing we notice
is that the perennial sorghum is up in developing a canape be for the grounds
warming up
for the gray have the annual the German day
so you got a canopy longer so
evoked come up in pet this later
so you can imagine the elegant micro-management up nutrients and water
you can also imagine out
I mean I just can't resist I you can also imagine
yeah let's do this again I good
your you kidnap you can also imagine
when we came across the cock that at hit the grasslands cutting
after cutting the forests and plowing the prairies
where we cut it off and all that scar but now
that had to have contributed significantly to global
to climate change that's a lotta carbon
Marty bender at the lake party vendor who's with us for many years
I walked in one day to Marty
and set the marty let's pretend its October
1492 and that typical party response was what the hell you want
do that for and I said
let's getting Esteban at the amount of carbon
in the biota on the the day before Columbus
at if that were to be replaced through the repurchase tation
how many years up oil burning
by the US could be absorbed by the vegetation
they all got the picture you want me to run it by again
just but your hand up if you want me to do it again
good I I like to like to deal with
honest people up
alright when columbus came it's been estimated that our soils were about 6
percent carpet
way cut the force with clout the prairies
as we play out the prairie swipe course this carbon
you know Scott oxidized of co2
so let's pretend that we're gonna get it back
like it what's now
we've been burning like a
well around $22 million barrels of oil a day now
a back in nineteen eighty is only $16 million barrels of oil a day but I think
Marty I asking this may be an 2000 I can't remember
so I said Marty if we were to get all it back
how many years worth a burning I'll
oil by the US could our
landscape apps or
so he went to work
and estimated somewhere between 17
and thirty years and we sorta settled closer to 1730 so we said twenty years
work
I'll seaquest rations
possible value all have a
good I'm a pretty good picture if I get H
take to crack said so
justice give you the subs or to repeat here now but imagine
the week plant being planted in september well
this other plant is already there then December it gets a little bigger and
March a little bigger in time
it's ready for harvest why there it is so
you know this is a is just obvious
now wave done some work a with perennial card that's going to take a lot of work
and it's probably gonna take jobs
well there's some people at cornell that are working on that perennial court
what I was pretty optimistic about having at Barber ready at a fairly short
period of time
I'll sorghum we've crossed sorghum
and we now have whether hardy up
sorghum that's growing it's still got a lot of reading to do in order to shorten
that
a David bad tassel a started out as a molecular biologist has become a
plant breeder he's working with the sunflowers and Maximilian sunflower he's
managed actually to get the single head
a just through selection of Maximilian the sunflower
and then another plants opium that we worked with for some time
is also an important oilseed crop
where also supporting the a
preying on those Asian up the upland rice in China
I'll ok couple love our guys go over there every year
have looking at that situation that Chinese are getting very interested and
perennials generally a the reason is is upland rice grown on steep slopes a
destroy the vegetation you maybe get a crop
her for two years but then
that set and it's not just their where it's happening it's and Malaysia
so this is very a a very serious
a kind the problem and
I and by the way this is a kind of an old slide
both at those a well the blue one would be
clear at the top there at the right now but this is just to show that the scene
wat
a is going up and the response to selection but just see
yield is up is very high
and all you folks know the story in the beginning God created the normal
distribution the bell state
her your and so as a consequence you to select the tail
on large size and ship the
a you can you can get big she didn't get enough genetic variation
I and hero show you just increase and the
up a stem length a thats bearing
a bearing seeds
problems and by the way there's gonna be another boost
and kneeled increase you folks
that breeders know this annual stand the cell
that is take their own a accept their own problem
and as a consequence or genetic load doesn't build up
much perennials tend to be out crossers
so by outcrossing that is
the then consequently the genetic low can build up because
it's being covered by say a normal gene
so as we start making these this and doing this in breeding
what we do is we're noticing that only about
half up the places on the spike
that would be accommodating a seat actually have seed
what we're doing is getting rid of the genetic load
so the curb go something like this:
and then once you get rid of that genetic load then it's gonna go back up
so yea though we go through the valley of the shadow of death we
there no able for the evolution forces with us
if your method as you know things like that
well that's still show you about some seed size changes
I'm not this is just some other molecular markers and play
I'll I shouldn't have that in their but a
well I don't mind happen and then there but that's boring
OBS on up almost 2,000 plants forty-three percent
survived the summer of 2010 and these are some other than that
up survived and a and
some larger Plaza is now in Australia a summer the plots and who South Wales
this shows the survivability and then the Paul
and at the United Academy of Agricultural Sciences with the perennial
rice now
hero show you the job
okay this is
the grain ye olde grams per plot
a the whole grain
and so it
and over here in spring a merchant shoes the number of shoots
per three meters so here
is the wild perennial
wealth a lotta shoots hold your fire
folks its Johnson grass sorghum hella pensi
alright here it is here here is the
and y'all grain sorghum are though the grain sorghum
a hybrid and then the grain sorghum
inbred but over here
is a sorghum times
a the the perennial
the annual sorghum so we have an outlying here and
well course here's an outlying about it that have the tide the yield
so we got good he old and we also have
the per naat tissue and here's an example
a David Van tassels work
to get the single head increased
apical dominance in the sunflower there
is the wild type situation a
over here out a Maximilian
and it's interesting a
it's been interesting to see how easy it is select for that apparently the Native
Americans
domesticated the sunflower twice once in the southeastern United States and once
in mexico
a as so that so I've been told
RI
so that's a background and so we felt confident enough
jobs that it was im that we could
start reaching out bob kerrey the former governor of Nebraska
and the senator from Nebraska
now is headed New School in New York City his
always tried to get me involved in the farm bill the five-year farm bills
I have a Hairston five-year farm bills
a you know they're all devoted primarily to export
policy and so on. I'm and commodities and
it it an interesting stuff had that
I said we need a fifty-year far beyond says tell you what
will do both will do a five-year farm bill on a fifty-year par bill
well I fulfilled my part of the obligation but he didn't
and so I want to just tell you a little about this
sup fifty your power bill five-year farm bales
feature exports commodity subsidies a little on this or conservation
and the third programs and of course
our 50-year farm bill would protect soil from erosion
and so on you folks can read this up
so this is essentially sustaining the resource over here
is a primarily extracting so
you will go through this kinda slowly well
this was done in 2009 and word
talking about 3 undead and 20
a million acres RI
down here we have
vegetables and
other things I'll show you in a moment appear that black part
those your tree in buying props
here is the hay and forage crops now we're not talking about range
we're talking about like alfalfa crops that are put in rotations
a so what we're saying is
2009 we want the subsidies such that we
increase the a male
I'll I'll perennials
and the rotation and the next five years more
and then right here are perennial grains began to come online
the blue here and then another five years more
and another five years more and at this point you see where we got those burdick
a little minds in there
now we're starting to introduced livestock
as management up the perennials
more livestock more perennial Grange Moor perennial great so that we go probs
20 percent perennial
to eighty percent perennial
and wave doubled the amount of tree in buying props
we've doubled the vegetables
I over a 15-year period so we're
given them their due but the dual purpose
we see fire and
grazing as primary management tools
I think more grazing than fire a
the selected grazer the bovine or
the mowing machine a non-selective greater
well just to show you what we're talking about in that little
chant down here this is a little bit here
66 percent that is Scott
I levin percent about is
market vegetables and melons
seven-percent sugar beets seven-percent processing
vegetables seven-percent potatoes 2 percent back up
up this little part here so
I'm scientist emphasize we gotta be talking about the grains
so more livestock fed the pasture fruit now take reach double beds to the lake
reach doubled
and annual Grange replaced with perennial grains
so that started the summary of the story
right there that there's more to it it an important ecological sense
that in 1700 the profile look something like this:
the components of agricultural sustainability permanent vegetation
nitrogen balance
a rural community health chemical hell
but then your any 1862
we all know that's the beginning have the up
land-grant college act its also
up the have well
you know how that happened the the
Homestead Act happen because
the civil war starts in 1861 the south is not coming to congress
the South opposed giving away land because they do it would
increase the a the favorite is above the North
so with them not coming why we Bohdan
both the Homestead Act and the land-grant college act
and then 1883 or so it's up
the experiment station and then 1914
extension and so just as we start getting everything wired
westward expansion and we start bringing all this on
look what happens things get worse
and then you get so conservation programs put in the 1930s you get a
little bump
then you get a card and soil biofuels Bowman it goes down again
so these little black dots those represent the five-year
far bales where we think we can bring back
resurrect so a.m.
here's the standard
and here is an
a something have a summary when we were hunters
gathers we were within the system
we had things that aid on us from the inside they were called parasites
bacteria
fungi worms and so on
I and we got 8 eaten from the outside to
a things that like to
there were what I mean we were pray but
then a you know we start agriculture
and we began to get outta phase
pretty seriously I to Phase then we have industrial agriculture get even more out
of place but then we put in sustainable agriculture
but it's just a tiny little creep we're still
so heavily dependent upon extraction so what are we gonna do
well we're not going back together and having willfully
I'll or pre-industrial agriculture
a in the same way willfully
I so we're saying it's possible to have a
a and agriculture that's more isomorphic
with the way nature's ecosystems work
so I'll
the soil carbon helps make several is Asian possible the possible carbon makes
a Bronze and Iron Age possible cold makes the Industrial Revolution began
oil accelerates that
and so does natural gas and so what we have and
is this lines where there's a gradual
increase said and boom right here at the present
is where it really takes all
so or you can look at it from this point of view
here is the population her
and then if you take a similar time frame I hear is the use of oil
so how's that any different that bacteria growing on a petri dish
so what we've done is as far as population growth respond to the
availability
up the non renewable carbon and two
we build an economic system we got this powerful
abstraction ability and we build an economic system
that's nothing more than petri dish economics
its capital is how we can get to the engine the
dish now every now and then we say well it's not fair we need a little more
social justice so we put in a little regulation
so that we can all get to the edge the petri dish equally
but it's still grow and we gotta talk about the end the growth
and i wanna talk about that a just a little bit cuz
I think the it might be important
so when economics and population absorb growth
I'll through he have renewables
the although jevans paradox
William Stanley J Evans 1865
his book the coal question he concluded that it doesn't really England got more
impatient use more resources
particularly coal and iron frees up capital
that's it so then
what well the end up growth so
if we can keep ourselves spread
I'll
what do we do well take measures to preserve the salt and water
and so now here comes the end by top
and the most interesting part and the most exciting part
and if you're not ready for why leave up
work going to the foundation world
as ego statesman and saying here's what
needs done we can have
a sustainable green revolution here
we well have
a merger up ecology
and evolutionary biology with
agriculture and so here's
what we're saying to them
Darwin
brought about the first major sent this is
and biology Darwin clearly was the most important biologist sense Aristotle
he it was a great sent this is
natural history tradition contributed
greatly thats 1859
that's the same here is great soil well
it's also the same here at that John Brown was hanged at Harper's Ferry
I won't go into that that's another lecture
comes at extra charge
1859 1865 is great Armando
but Mendo was not discovered his work wasn't discovered
until 1908 by three biologists independently
so genetics had its beginning
and they were had to work through on the chromosome theory of heredity
they had to learn about gene interaction
they were mapping jane's
they were looking at your shop applies and my
and cattle and horses and wraps and snapdragons
San peas and so on
but as the geneticists were at work they were developing their own vocabulary
the natural history people the Darwinian people
did not have an acrid area heredity
and sewer chasm developed that was pretty deep
and wide and
the two were unable to really talk to one another
for about three decades
but a man who had been raised and the
ukraine in a natural history tradition
was at work in Morgans lab at columbia
on Drosophila applies that was Theodosius stuff John ski
and he began to pull the two together
that in 1936 wrote a book that was published in 1937
entitled genetics and the Origin of Species
that was a major synthesis
and there was a great flowering that followed
dub john's case set this is and others develop their own version up the set the
service
not necessarily in computation
are not in competition but we had
a flourishing that's 37 so 1865
to eighteen knobs a 1859
the 1937 then
1953 is Watson and Crick
and so now we have molecular biology
that is able to kinda integrated also I'm called were calling that the third
synthesis
by the way this paper that
a firms stand cocks at the Land Institute
and ecologist at Prescott College tired on this paper called the next step this
is
so now we have 3
that have come together and so
the the evolutionary biology ecology with the modern molecular sent this is
were saying now stands ready to merge with
agriculture now that we have the perennials on the horizon
and that'd be the ports sentences so that's what we're saying to the
foundation world
we have a chance for the first time in history
and partly because the computational power part because the molecular tools
partly because up a sense the
a a great possibility
to have a conceptual revolution for
agriculture so what we're saying to the world is
there lotta places around the planet
that week head setup
stations there's
people working with rights they're scary International Rice Research Institute
in on African rice center
so the fella pains China pan Africa the quakes
several their corn several here sorghum several here pigeon pea several
other leg in terms of oilseed crop soybeans and saw
I'll we authors
are picking 11 sites actually will probably add another
I there's a very big US program at the University of Manitoba
on perennials but what we're saying is
we need 11 or 12 sites
around the planet these happen to be are favored
fiber Chu all sites Cornell University Georgia Washington State North Carolina
State Texas A&M
and what we do is train a 110
PhD scientists
way would have them calm and
cohorts cohort 1
what have 22 the next year we would start cohort
to then cohort three then cohort for than coal or
5 for all 110 total
so we would pay these people
50,000 a year for three years
30,000 Saori 20,000 for
laver whatever breeders molecular geneticists ecologists and modelers
braiders
7 in cohort 1 molecular geneticists 3
colleges modelers and so on the next year
727 that a you say
and then here's what whether happened
when this program began 50 PhD level scientists in these levin
sis places getting things established
to good start
a to be receiving these young PhD
so 0 well here's the cost
each Fellow 50,000 times three years
cost that much each major props gets 10,000 per year
bridge fellow this much committee members
selecting travel 24 million dollars
there then go often work in clusters Na's 11 or 12 places around the planet
and each cluster would have there'd these 10
individuals the coordinator a model where the breeders the geneticists
ecologists agronomist
and then tech nations can i bum 10 support staff a total a thirty
the annual cost per site four and a half million dollars
so here's a summary
you got fifty PhD level scientists for the first three years
that's gonna cost $45 million the Fibre Channel sites twenty two and a half
training PHD's 24 million
and then this will be the cost
for all 11 clusters for the next twenty seven years
and %uh so on a total cost 1.64 billion
$55 million a year for thirty years
each cluster is ed
is committed to a thirty year time frame
now they'll be working alongside others at senator
wherever that are working on short term here and now
and they're all naturally be linkage between the two
but there to keep their eye on the 30-year ball
and not get distracted into the here and now
sounds like a lot of money one-third
current current cost for the ethanol
study 30 a subsidy for one year
peanuts
and if we could do that that would be
the most significant possibility now
what do we have to help move this along
we've got this broad discipline of ecology and evolutionary biology
where they've been putting knowledge on the shell for 100 years
we've got 26 long-term ecological research
sites around the country
what I was the Konza Prairie in Kansas another is
importer Rico there's one that's agricultural
and that's the Kellogg station and I'm Michigan
that's run a at yell Michigan run by Michigan State
so that was established in nineteen
eighty by the National Science Foundation and that body and knowledge
has been building up on all these different ecosystems
the United States including Porto Rico so here it is
sittin up their quiver it was put there
by ecologists that we're trying to understand
hell the natural world works
RI should
ecologists have had the luxury to
understood determined how the world is how the world works
its they've had the luxury to be descriptive
agriculture is a not been so fortunate they've had the burden to be
prescript it and those are two cultures
I did appreciate what extent they are two cultures
but if you our stock with the end you know you're involved in assists with us
effort but now with the prevails on the horizon we can imagine
that it's like changing hardware
we now have different hardware to work with
and so that it's now gonna be easier to bring those processes up the wild
a to the farm
I'm
the last green revolution
was predicated on bushels an acre zoos
the last green revolution was fertilizer
pesticides irrigation wells
and it led to an awful lot of social injustice
a sustainable green revolution has to take into account the social justice
issues
I think that we can say
that if a farmer
does not hap to you borrow money
have credit in order to buy the inputs
that he or she
I is not at risk when there's a crop failure
we had a lot of that in the last green revolution
yes we increase the yields two and a half to three pole
a but we
did it with the industrial mining
so ecology it seems to me
has the potential
the corporate account rep this is a caipirinha can revolution
changed our idea ok where we are
in the universe the Sun doesn't goal around the earth
a the earth goes around the Sun
that had a great philosophical impact on us
a in a similar manner to move from the industrial mind which is given us
all sorts a brain damage that is
it's given us this of all
fundamentalism call technological fundamentalism
the belief that we're gonna solve our problems through technology
rather than to think about the necessity
%uh limits and this I
state will help us appreciate that
that the Scapa lingo civilization
that is standing behind all of these a patient sees
is honey knowledge
fossil fuel dependency and I'll tell you I'll let me elaborate here
for ten years we had a 10-year well 10-year sunshine farms study
Marty bender directed it it was a total a 210 acres
fifty acres of crops 168
a forage we had we had
jobs photovoltaic panels that provide all the electricity for the place
we had a bio diesel tractor we grew the fuel for the bio diesel tractor
we had chickens for eggs and for I'll
a for me
I am where draft animals I'll
we were able to do something other comparison between the draft panel on
the bio diesel tractor
Marty when all the way back to the energy costs for mining the ornamental
so tired arrange to build the tractor
the processing and gary indiana to assembly
the thirty worker days for assembly the 6.2
a a mile one day average commute
that on and on at all and including a bold
if a bowl we went to town to get a bolt then
he wait the boat and got the embodied energy the bow
so and the trip to town on advertising the pickup trucks are horrendous
pocket data a well
I said the Marty all one day I said look marty we gotta know
for these other people where you're getting some %uh this data
where do they quit in getting at the energy costs
should we be charging any love the blacktop
put on the road to the farm
well how the hell we gonna do that
I it's okay marty what do we charge or do we stop
where did they stop peter is penciled down he says when they get tired
you can't get at all about that but what you can begin to appreciate is once you
start at
you realize the skyscrapers
the board meetings the plights
making decisions about everything from a neoprene washer
to whether it's gonna be made in China
you see so that's caplinger civilization is somehow
opaque to us so here's what I'm
saying that it we
if we begin to get an ecological worldview
we will be able to come to homes
with limits faster then
we ever could so long as we have this strong dependency on fossil fuels
I hope you don't misunderstand what I'm trying to say when I tell you this next
little tidbit
that
Robert Louis Stevenson came across the country if
many went to I don't know to hear one of those islands in the Pacific
and he noted that
they practiced infanticide but they never spank their kids
he'd come from Scotland where they beat the hell out other kids but they never
practice infanticide
now they knew they had so much land
they knew how far out they could go to patients still get back
so they did make next acknowledge limits
we got a big con and
dan Luton at Berkeley said something may come across the Bay Bridge once he and I
were both on the border friends the earth
and he said he actually publish this also but he said
you know Weser problem is we came as a poor people
to a seemingly empty land that was rich in resources
and we build our institutions for that perception of reality
our political institutions our economic institutions
in our educational institutions and even our religious institutions
predicated on poor people empty land rich
but now we've become rich people in an increasingly poor girl and that's
pulling up
knows institutions don't hold we patch him up
we give a lick and a promise but they don't hold software to have this
cultural transformations
that is necessary I think it begins with agriculture
and it begins right before the break began for the split
began and so
this is more than about that because if we can imagine say
quite are the true economies
their rainforests they're all pine Meadows
their prairies they feature material recycling and they run on contemporary
sunlight
they're obeying the second law of thermodynamics
at various levels at various true peak levels
if we can build a culture that is somewhat
isomorphic with that we can then
began to have a different set up near the force
for 8 hilemon economies generally
and then we may have a chance if we can keep our soils
we can get through this long dark tunnel in which we have the need to decrease
population and reduce economic growth
and as a
TS eliot it's the fourth court at
little getting the poet TS eliot we shall not cease from exploration
and in the end will know the place for the first time
the discovery above the earth
is still before us so far we've only exploited
I thank you