Our strategy now is to collaborate with public institutions in order to direct more research in the direction of Natural Systems Agriculture. We are seeking funds to construct and operate a research center devoted to Natural Systems Agriculture and to underwrite scientists elsewhere who will engage with us in such research. We estimate the research cost to be $5 million a year for 25 years, which is a small fraction of one percent of the nation`s annual agricultural research investment.

Important questions have been answered and crucial principles explored to the point that we feel comfortable in saying that we have demonstrated the scientific feasibility of our proposal for a Natural Systems Agriculture. Because this work deals with basic biological questions and principles, the implications are applicable worldwide. If Natural Systems Agriculture were fully adopted, we could one day see the end of agricultural scientists from industrialized societies delivering agronomic methods and technologies from their fossil fuel-intensive infrastructures into developing countries and thereby saddling them with brittle economies.

When people, land, and community are as one,

all three members prosper;

when they relate not as members

but as competing interests,

all three are exploited.

By consulting Nature as the source

and measure of that membership,

The Land Institute seeks to develop an agriculture

that will save soil from being lost or poisoned

while promoting a community life at once

prosperous and enduring.

Natural Systems Agriculture is a new paradigm for food production, where nature is mimicked rather than subdued and ignored. Because we are located in native prairie, we look to the prairie as our model for grain crops. As a result, we are investigating the feasibility of perennial polycultures or mixtures of perennial grains. No other organization has sought to do this. After publishing numerous papers in scientific refereed journals, writing books, and making many presentations here and abroad, The Land Institute receives attention worldwide for its ideas.

The functions of a natural system can be achieved by mimicking its structure. We believe that with additional research, an agriculture that is resilient [and therefore productive over the long term], economical [the need for costly inputs would be significantly diminished], and ecologically responsible is well within reach. The first impetus to search for a new agriculture was soil loss and soil pollution. Agricultural chemicals poison our soils and our waters and harm people. Most importantly, a quarter to a third of our topsoil is gone 200 years after opening this country to agriculture. Natural Systems Agriculture would leave the ground unplowed for years and use few or no chemicals, solving many environmental problems at their root.

The Sunshine Farm Research Program is a 10-year project—its last field season was 2001. We are collecting comprehensive data on the energy, materials, and labor going into 50 acres of conventional crops plus 100 acres of prairie pasture grazed by cattle. The Sunshine Farm`s goal is to calculate the amount of productive capacity a sustainable farm must devote to its own fuel and fertility. An extensive final report with computer database and energy budgets will provide crucial data to other sustainable agriculture researchers. It will also be a benchmark against which eventually we can compare our own Natural Systems Agriculture. With this information, a more effective national policy could be formulated for the transition of agriculture to renewable energy.