David Pimentel consistently promoted perennial grains as the future of agriculture

David Pimentel was trained as an entomologist, but he was widely recognized for investigating and revealing uncomfortable knowledge on the state of global agriculture, covering topics of energy, soil erosion, biodiversity loss, pesticide contamination and energy use. While outspoken in his bold assessments of agriculture’s environmental and energetic shortcomings, he was less forthcoming with proposals for equally bold solutions. Yet one highly transformative idea that he raised repeatedly in his career after co-authoring a seminal paper in 1986 with researchers at The Land Institute was the breeding of perennial grain crops to replace annual grains on the landscape. In this paper, we look holistically at the work of David Pimentel to interpret his views on the prospects for plant breeders to develop perennial grains and the challenges that perennial grains could help address. As society continues to grapple with profound agricultural challenges, it is relevant that one of the last century’s most prominent and comprehensive scholars of agriculture honed in on perennial grains as the bold solution that would simultaneously address multiple complex environmental challenges while reducing human labor and fossil fuel dependency.