Chances are that if found your way here and are reading this you share many of the same of the same concerns as myself with the state of agriculture, energy and the world.  From a mile high view of earth we can see we are growing beyond 7 billion people and are reaching numerous pinch-points in meeting the food, energy and fuel demands of these people with our strained fossil fuel energy system.  Indeed for most people of earth the benefits of the industrial system we live in have never been realized, and with a high likelihood of peak oil and other resource bottlenecks they never will be realized. 

Thoughts like that really make me dig and search for viable silver linings to remedy the problems.  Though I certainly can't claim to have found one grand plan to completely solve these problems I do feel like some things simply flat out make sense and should be implemented at full speed.  The development of perennial agriculture is one such idea.  Imagine the ecological benefits of deriving our food fuel and fiber from a sustain-ably managed, intentionally developed ecosystem that regrows itself each year without tillage, chemical warfare, and the the accompanying collateral damage to the earth.  It can and is happening.  Permaculture, agroforestry, grass fed grazing operations, silvaculture, and many unamed systems are out there pushing the envelope towards reintegrating agriculture within an ecosystem.  These efforts will only grow in importance as we enter the downward curve of peak oil, as we no longer can mask poor soil management with huge energy and chemical inputs.  The thing is we really need to develop these systems fast.  Considering the time it took us to develop annual plants to high levels of productivity it really appears we are seriously behind the curve, if we want perennial agriculture to take off in a significant way over the next century.  We do however have some major tools for the time being at our disposal to speed things up, namely the internet.

One of the more fascinating developments of the internet seems to be the ability for massive numbers of people to collaborate in a way that is not dependent on geography or time.  Open source projects seem to be the organization forms that capitalize on this.  So I can't help but wonder what would happen if we applied open source protocol to a massive decentralized perennial plant breeding protocol?  What would that look like? In my minds eye I could imagine hundreds of thousands of individuals having backyard nurseries of controlled breeding stock.  There backyards could become a test spot for the finding the next strains of productive perennial trees or shrubs. Tests of course need not be limited to yards, large idle plots of land could be utilized to seek out the next novel genetic combinations of perennial plants.  All data could be photographed, geotagged and automatically uploaded to an open database via a smartphone app.  This would enable a vigorous trade of seed and other genetic material.  I'm fairly certain such a wide and diverse number of participants scattered across different regions tied together in an open database would exponentially speed the process of creating new and viable strains, just as it has done for ideas shared across the internet.  It could be an evolutionary accelerator on a biological level.

If that idea strikes you as interesting it should be mentioned that we at Forest Ag Enterprises have an abundance of of hybrid hazelnuts bare root stock on hand in a nursery just begging for a home.  These are a productive and hardy strains, but like all things in nature, not static and perfected.  You can certainly buy them and plant them for their immediate tasty resilient food production capabilities, they also make excellent hedges, windbreaks, and soil erosion barrier or just plain good wildlife attractors.  Perhaps most ambitious of all you could buy them with the intent of helping to pioneer and develop resilient perennial agricultural systems.  The more sites and places and individual breeders out there the more opportunity for evolving long term productive perennial agricultural systems. Simply follow the hazelnut improvement program guidelines for keeping track of and sharing your results and you'll be a part of accelerating resilient productive hazelnut production.  Well if you made it this far thanks for listening to some wild ideas, I'd love to hear your thoughts or feedback on accelerating resilient ag too.

Nick Raaum

_Perhaps one of the greatest motivator for perennial permaculture farming is the quality of the food.  Couldn't pass sharing pictures of this delightful gourmet dish.  Here are the ingredients:

Grass-fed, Hazelnut-apple-chestnut finished pork.
Dry-cured for about a week
Seasoned and hanged to dry in the meat pantry

On the left: Juniper berry, hungarian paprika, red wine, black pepper pancetta.
In the middle: jamon iberico
On the right: Black pepper, brown sugar, vinegar pancetta

lacto fermented red pepper tips and honey-soaked blueberries to cleanse the palate.
Not shown: Shepard's Hard Cyder

Homegrown heaven!