Regenerative agriculture could be one of the best answers for dealing with climate change and future food security. Kernza, a natural perennial wheat grass, can be harvested like wheat. The downside of this wheat grass is that you need three times the amount of land for Kernza to match equivalent wheat yields. The positives are that Kernza has deep roots. It can sequester lots of carbon dioxide, much more than other farm crops. It requires less water, less fertilizer, and doesn’t need replanting every year.
A September 9, 2025, New York Times article, authored by David Gelles, quotes Paul Lightfoot, from Patagonia, the clothing manufacturer that is now into sustainable food production, who, when asked about growing Kernza to use in its beers, states, “It’s just a way better way of doing things. Humanity isn’t doomed to do things in a way that ruins everything.”
Gelles’ observation is confirmed by many agronomists. Switching to perennial staple crops can arm us with tools that can address both climate change and feed the planet. A move away from annual monocrops and their increasingly heavy reliance on external inputs that include energy, fertilizers and pesticides to perennial staple crops would create a more sustainable industry. Perennial substitutes are better at soil carbon sequestration. Farming methods would be dramatically altered if the annual plowing and planting of wheat, corn (maize), soybeans and rice, our principal staple crops, ended. Today, these four monocrops cover more than 1.29 billion hectares (3.19 billion acres) of land on the planet.
It means farmers would adopt a permaculture strategy, a system far different from the way farming is done today. Permaculture emphasizes the use of perennial crops that regenerate naturally and remain alive for years. These crops feature extensive root systems that stabilize soil, increase water and nutrient retention, sequester more carbon, and reduce the need for planting and replanting. Today, we see permaculture practices in forest agronomy. Think of fruit trees and berry-producing shrubs as good permaculture examples.
But we cannot only live by eating fruit. So, what is the current status of agrodevelopment focused on perennial wheat, corn, soybean, rice, oats and other foods that today are dominated by annuals?
Wheat – Besides Kernza, there are several perennial wheat lines that have been developed that can survive for three consecutive years, providing yields at 50 to 70% of existing annual wheat strains. Continuing research is upping these yields to approach what would be deemed acceptable. Kernza, as promising as it is, is still a low-yield substitute, which makes it more problematic.
Rice – China and Southeast Asia research has produced several perennial rice strains that survive up to five consecutive years, producing yields between 70 and 80% of annual varieties. In small farm test plots covering several thousand hectares, the immediate benefits have included harvestable crops involving reduced labour, emissions, and environmental degradation.
Corn​ – So far, perennial corn has presented a more significant challenge. Agrosceintists have attempted to crossbreed annual corn with its perennial relatives, teosinte and Zea diploperennis, but the results have produced low genetic recombination, and when plants do result, they are sterile hybrids. The problem lies in corn’s complex genome, which makes genetic recombination to produce desired traits in a stable plant next to impossible at present.
Soybean – Like corn, soybeans are genetically complex, described as having polygenic traits that pose considerable problems. Soybeans in the wild are highly diverse genetically. The domesticated soybean, first developed in China, is not. The 38 ancestral soybean varieties in existence share only 54.18% of the genetic material found in cultivated soybeans today. Compared to the wild varieties, cultivated soybeans have lost around 50% of sequence diversity, making efforts to create a perennial version more difficult. Crossbreeding with wild varieties to date, largely from research being done in Australia, has yielded little success in creating a perennial equivalent.
Oats, Rye, Sorghum, Millet and Oilseeds – In other staple crop research, there has been some success through hybridization experiments involving crossbreeding with wild relatives of these plants.
- Research on perennial oat varieties has not yet yielded any successes.
- Two rye varieties, Permontra and ACE-1, the former developed in Germany, and the latter in Canada, have produced perennial yields up to 73% of annual rye.
- Sorghum, when crossbred with Johnsongrass, has shown promising success.
- Several varieties of millet, including pearl, foxtail, finger and proso millet, are being stress-tested in hybrid versions.
- Oilseeds, a category that includes canola (also known as rapeseed), sunflowers, peanuts, flaxseed (also known as linseed), mustard, and sesame seeds, have yielded some perennial successes.
- The University of Minnesota has had success in creating a perennial flax.
- The US Department of Agriculture has seen preliminary success with sunflowers.
Although perennial alternatives to staple crops, to date, have not produced yields equal to their monocrop cousins, gene editing should soon address the difference and possibly enhance yields.
When it comes to mitigating climate change, however, perennials are seen as agriculture’s answer to dealing with climate change. Why? Several reasons, including:
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Improved soil health – by eliminating tilling and replanting cycles, perennial staple crops reduce soil erosion by providing continuous ground cover, and enhance soil fertility through deep root systems that increase soil organic carbon.
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Carbon Sequestration – through extensive root systems, carbon dioxide (CO2) breaks down into its molecular components as the roots capture and store the carbon.​
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Reduced Inputs and Emissions – No annual replanting translates to less fertilizer, pesticides, tillage, lower fuel and chemical inputs, and less pollution runoff.
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Water and Nutrient Efficiency – Deep and extensive roots in perennials are more drought resistant and, therefore, less prone to nutrient leaching.
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Improved Biodiversity – Perennials provide a sustainable biomass and habitat for beneficial organisms, pollinators, and wildlife, promoting ecosystem stability even in the face of changing climate conditions.​
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Regenerative Impacts – Transitioning from annual to perennial-based agriculture brings farming methods closer to those characteristics found in natural ecosystems.
