No method for perpetuating agricultural productivity exists. Our goal is to improve the security of our food and fiber source by reducing soil erosion, decreasing dependency upon petroleum and natural gas, and relieving the agriculture-related chemical contamination of our land and water. Over 75 percent of human calories worldwide come from grains such as wheat and corn, but the production of these grains erodes ecological capital. Our research is directed toward the goal of having conservation as a consequence of agricultural production. A long-time friend of The Land Institute recently stated that if we don't get sustainability in agriculture first, it won't happen anywhere.
Agriculture is fundamentally ecological in nature.
Agriculture has the science of ecology standing behind it, a science devoted to discovering how ecosystems work. The materials and industrial sectors do not. The Land Institute s work melds ecology and agronomy. Our programs have been designed to explore basic scientific principles pertinent to a new agriculture. Immodest as it sounds, we think our research, properly developed, can help us break away from the long list of civilizations whose demise was largely the failure of their agricultures.