Short project description

The majority of humanity’s food calories are derived from annual grains, which require replanting for each harvest. This results in regular soil disturbance and fallow periods between annual crops, which pose major sustainability challenges. In a radical new imagining of agricultural systems, researchers have begun to develop perennial versions of some of our most common annual grains, including cereal rye.

Perennial cereal rye, has shown promising yields in Denmark, but researchers lack clear targets for (i) soils and climates where this type of crop might likely to be grown in Denmark, (ii) how the crop could offer the most benefits to producers, and (iii) the markets the crop products could access if replacing annual cereal rye production.

This research project involves utilizing extensive field-based data from Denmark to explore different typologies of current Danish cereal rye producers. The dataset is impressive in both its scope and detail, allowing for unique typographical analysis that would not be possible in other countries. Factors such as crop rotations, climates, landscape features, soil types, farm size, farm ownership, proximity to livestock, proximity to specialty grain production, production practices, etc., can be used to understand and group Danish cereal rye growers using quantitative methods blended with qualitative methods (e.g., farmer interviews/focus groups). By integrating multidisciplinary data, the information produced from this work will be directly used by researchers to develop ‘path of development’ scenarios for perennial cereal rye. Lessons learnt can also serve as a template for the research development of other perennial grains (wheat, Baki™ bean, Kernza™).