Director of Adoption and Scaling at @ForeverGreenUMN, thoughts are my own, perennial + CLC agriculture, avid cook + gardener, capoeirista, recovering DJ.
@FredIutzi@Savannainst Used to work with Niki in SoCal farm-to-institution universe, hope to intersect again soon in the agroforestry world. So happy to see her name in your tweets, Fred- great human!
@AnneSchwagerl Looked at the radar and saw white, blue, purple, red, green, yellow, orange, and more red all converging over near my Western MN ppl. Fun (...as in not at all fun). Wishing you smooth storm passing!
“SUPPORTING REGENERATIVE FARMING WITH PERENNIAL GRAINS.” @KodiakCakes is knocking the #Kernza messaging out of the park on this one. Taste test with @ForeverGreenUMN imminent. Thx Kodiak team, and thx all growers, biz, and partners that make products like this possible!!
Perennial rice delivers similar yields to annual rice with ~50% reduction in labor and input costs for the world's most widely consumed staple food! Tremendous basic science here, and great proof of concept for the potential of perennial grains.
New research shows perennial rice production reduces labor & increases farmer profit. Perennial rice production in southern China reduced labor by nearly 60% compared to annual rice, and farmers spent almost 50% less on seeds, fertilizers, & other inputs. https://t.co/SwdU0QYtRm
New MN pilot grant program now LIVE to support biz, supply chain, and market dev. for #continuouslivingcover and #regenerativeagriculture! Focus in on building mkts for new perennial and winter annual crops/systems. $420k available, $10-50k each, apps due 4/13. @ForeverGreenUMN
@pietrospina Early commercial push hit snags yes, but over last 2 yrs Cascadian Farms (a GMI organic brand) released a Kernza cereal @ Whole Foods and a Kernza flour now @ Walmart, both nationwide. Lots of awesome Kernza entrepreneurship, too- check out Perennial Pantry + Sustain-a-Grain
@pietrospina There's no subsidy on the seed but there is substantial production cost share/de-risking now from the state and federal govs (NRCS), which gets at a similar outcome. Kernza for sure has its challenges, more support has been coming online the last ~2 years
Check this whole live-tweeted thread for highlights of a fantastic hearing in the #mnleg yesterday to advance the R&D and commercialization of new perennial and winter annual crops in the Upper Midwest.
We need to bake conservation right into our cropping systems--it shouldn't be an add-on.
That's the promise of #Kernza and other new crops we're developing in @ForeverGreenUMN.
https://t.co/kJi5JPwhEN
“The seeds planted by visionary researchers would have never taken root in Minnesota without supportive state agencies, policymakers, committed advocates, and conservation-minded farmers.” @US_N4C@MNagriculture@MKernza#COP27 https://t.co/PdMGsbmUFy
By keeping #farmland covered with plants year round, perennial grains like Kernza® and “cash cover crops” like winter camelina can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase soil #carbon storage. @MKernza@NatureAsMeasure@MNagriculture#COP27
https://t.co/AOLHtt7e5p