About New Perennials

Agriculture’s 10,000 year history has generated ecologically unsustainable practices and culturally corrosive hierarchies that must change. Within this context, the New Perennials project draws inspiration for radical change from the work of The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, that is developing perennial grain crops and polyculture farming solutions. New Perennials links education, research and analysis on agricultural transformation with community initiatives that work to grow, shape, and share the expressions of perennial thought and action.

The project began in 2015 when Wes Jackson and Bill Vitek launched into initial conversations and convened a group of colleagues from around the globe to reimagine “the curriculum,” the intellectual infrastructure that in today’s educational systems tends to contribute to the abuse of land and people, typically in the name of “progress.” In 2016, Aubrey Streit Krug joined Jackson at The Land Institute, and the three explored  “ologies,” “isms,” and the arts across age and difference while facing facts and limits. They were creating communities of learning and practice, and exploring perenniality and diversity in cultural systems. Since those early gatherings, New Perennials and The Land Institute have rooted themselves as co-learners and practitioners working in geographically different regions and connected by a shared history and a vision of possibilities. In 2018, Ecosphere Studies (now called the Perennial Cultures Lab) became a program at The Land Institute, and Vitek brought the New Perennials project to Vermont, where it is currently in residence at Middlebury College.