It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Sauce-flavor Baijiu, represented by Moutai, holds a prominent place in China’s liquor market and drinking culture. Produced mainly from Hongyingzi sorghum through repeated fermentation and distillation, it generates solid co-products known as sauce-flavor Baijiu distillers’ grains. Sauce-flavor Baijiu distillers’ grains are already used as a feed resource in livestock production. Their protein, fiber and fermentation-derived compounds provide a basis for both nutritional utilization and functional feed development. Concentrated regional supply also supports collaboration between distilleries and nearby farms, connecting brewing co-product utilization with livestock feeding.
The review examines the nutritional composition, fermentation upgrading and feeding applications of sauce-flavor Baijiu distillers’ grains. It considers microbial structures, organic acids, peptides and polyphenols alongside conventional nutrients. Studies in cattle, poultry and pigs illustrate how processing and diet formulation shape feeding outcomes. This integrated perspective connects resource utilization, functional components and animal nutrition.
The review highlights the nutritional value and functional development opportunities of sauce-flavor Baijiu distillers’ grains. In a cited 42-day broiler study, the tested fermented Moutai product maintained growth at dietary inclusion levels up to 10%. A 60-day finishing-cattle study found no significant impairment of intake, daily gain or feed efficiency at 15% and 30% fermented material on a dietary dry-matter basis. In growing-finishing pigs, the tested fermented product maintained growth at up to 10%, with 5% showing the clearest later-finishing economic and carcass responses. Together, these studies provide species- and product-specific references for feed formulation and fermentation upgrading.
Building on established feed use, the review outlines opportunities to improve the consistency and functional value of Baijiu distillers’ grains. Fermentation and processing can be assessed through nutrient recovery, component profiles and animal responses. Nutritionally matched trials can help clarify the contributions of microbial structures and associated compounds. Combining product characterization with environmental and economic assessment can guide efficient regional brewing-feed-livestock systems.
Sauce-flavor Baijiu distillers’ grains as a potential postbiotic-rich functional feed resource for sustainable livestock production
Sunday, November 08, 2026
Southern African farmers prepare for powerful El Nino with agroecology
Farmer Dudzai Matsapa works under a scorching sun, digging small, shallow pits across his field in Nyanga, east of the Zimbabwean capital, Harare. He will later fill these potholes with organic manure and wait for the rainy season. This is all part of Matsapa’s preparation for the anticipated El Nino, which is expected to trigger drought and extreme heat across southern Africa.
“Instead of ploughing the entire land, I only disrupt the specific spot where plants will grow,” Matsapa told RFI at his farm.
The potholes technique – which captures water, concentrates organic matter and drastically improves crop yields in dry areas – is part of a practice known as agroecology, a system which produces food while protecting the environment.
It involves sustainable farming practices that improve soil health, conserve water and increase biodiversity.
A report published last month by the charity ActionAid showed that agroecology can deliver comparable or greater yields than industrial agriculture. Among its findings were a 41 percent average rise in cereal yields from rotating legumes with cereals across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Since 2021, Matsapa, a father of six, has embraced agroecology techniques including zero tillage, which minimises soil disturbance, and planted drought-resistant crops such as short-term varieties of maize, groundnuts, sunflower, sorghum and millet.
The El Nino effect
The economy of Nyanga, in Zimbabwe’s eastern highlands, mostly runs on tourism, but those in the rural areas survive on farming. But climate change is threatening their livelihoods.
In September, the World Meteorological Organization announced that the El Nino climate pattern is strengthening rapidly in the Pacific Ocean, raising the prospect of months of extreme heat, floods and drought around the globe. Forecasters predict it will peak around late 2026 and continue until at least February next year.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation has emphasised the importance of acting early to protect livelihoods.
Farmers in countries such as Zimbabwe and Zambia are using agroecology to prepare for the anticipated drought.
Matsapa makes his own manure from compost. He mixes cow dung and dried grass in a pit and leaves it for several weeks to allow the materials to decompose.
Netsai Dodzo, who is from the same village, has also prepared potholes in her field.
She too grows drought-resistant crops and says that intercropping – an agricultural practice where two or more crop species are grown simultaneously in the same field during a single growing season – helps her to score a bumper harvest.
Intercropping certain crops repels pests, reduces erosion by holding soil together, lowers moisture evaporation and improves soil health.
Netsai Dzodzo uses agroecology farming techniques including intercropping.
She also makes bio-chemicals from a mixture of garlic, chilli and other plants to control pests by disrupting the feeding and reproduction of insects, in place of manmade pesticides.
Nswau Kufanga, a farmer from the village of Liboma in Sesheke, Zambia’s Western Province, says she grows a local maize seed variety, known as kafwamba, which is drought-resistant.
“The type of maize that I grow is an early maturity,” the mother of three told RFI. “I can still get a better harvest during drought because it does not need much water and it matures in a few months compared to other varieties that need more time.”
Kufanga grows cassava, groundnuts, millet and sorghum. She also uses the intercropping technique and uses ashes from her kitchen to control pests.
Namuchana Mubita, another farmer from Sesheke, says that when the area receives good rains, as it did early this year, he gets up to 2.8 tonnes of maize by practising agroecology farming.
His maize harvest during a previous drought was sill slightly above a tonne, providing more than enough food for his four children until the next harvest.
Kufanga said she had an excess of maize that she sold to her neighbours during the 2025 dry season.
Both Mubita and Kufanga have seen farmers who use conventional techniques suffering after their crops shrivelled because of drought.
Benjamin Mtembo of Zambia’s Ministry of Agriculture said that harvests from the 14 villages under his jurisdiction in Sesheke bear this out – during a drought, farmers see better harvests with agroecology.
Both Dodzo and Matsapa have reported a decline of 50 percent in harvests during droughts, but this is still enough to feed their families.
Faides TembaTemba, executive director of ActionAid Zambia, said that Zambia needs to move from recognising sustainable agriculture in policy to actively financing agroecology as a national priority.
“Zambia must integrate agroecology into climate and development plans," she told RFI.
For Matsapa's part, he is ready for what El Nino brings. “I have already done my part. Now, I am just waiting."
Sunday, October 04, 2026
France struggles to fund farm climate adaptation as losses mount
Farmers in France are expecting their first payments shortly under the government's billion-euro emergency aid package to support farmers affected by severe summer heatwaves, droughts and wildfires. As the effects of climate change worsen, experts say compensation alone will not be enough to protect French agriculture in the long term.
"On my farm, the drought caused about €40,000 in losses," he told RFI.
"I chose to insure my corn so I will get about €10,000 in compensation for that, but I had to buy feed and I lost a lot of milk."
He called 2026 a "particularly difficult year" for farmers, with crisis coming on top of crisis.
Three heatwaves, coupled with widespread water restrictions, turned fields yellow and scorched crops. The conditions wiped out harvests, killed livestock and drained farmers' cash reserves.
As preparations for the next growing season get underway, French agriculture has been left depleted by a summer that is unlikely to remain a one-off.
"The crisis affects all types of production and all parts of the country," said Maxime Buizard-Blondeau, a farmer in the Loiret region and president of the Centre-Val de Loire regional chamber of agriculture. He also serves as vice-president of the Young Farmers organisation, which has ties to France's biggest agricultural union, the FNSEA.
This summer, he said, has been "a wake-up call for many agricultural leaders about the lack of resilience of our systems and farms in the face of climate change". Compensation falls short
The government announced its emergency Climate, Adaptation, Drought and Wildfire Plan (Plan Casi) at the beginning of September, with a budget of some €1.3 billion.
Around two-thirds of the funds will go to compensation, while the remainder has been allocated to helping farms purchase the supplies they need to resume production.
The first payments are expected in early October.
Agriculture Minister Annie Genevard warned that the government could not compensate in full for losses that the FNSEA estimates at around €10 billion.
"The €1 billion in the plan is roughly the amount of compensation paid to sectors affected by avian flu in 2021-22," said Lucile Rogissart, an agricultural economist at the Institute for Climate Economics, a think tank in Paris.
"The big difference is that, in that case, it covered almost all the costs of the crisis. Here, we are no longer talking about the same scale of compensation."
Courgeau said he expects to receive €2,000 from the emergency package, in the form of a property-tax rebate.
"This aid is essential, but it satisfies neither farmers, who would like to make a living from their work, nor public budgets, which are under considerable pressure," said Rogissart.
Instead, Rogissart argues the government should be helping farmers to limit climate-related damage in the first place.
"We can reduce our vulnerability to hazards by building resilient and sustainable systems," she said – noting that the predominant model, centred on intensive monoculture, is no longer such a system.
Courgeau said he feared farmers would turn to technological fixes, such as air conditioning and irrigation, that do not address underlying vulnerabilities.
"That is a major concern," said the dairy farmer, who co-chairs the Nourrir collective, which brings together 54 farming, environmental and civil society organisations campaigning to reform agricultural and food systems.
Not all farms suffered equally this summer, he said.
"Farms that are more self-sufficient, based on grassland and grass-fed livestock, which are diversified, which have worked to improve soil organic matter, which have developed hedgerows or practised agroforestry, and which have not incurred excessively high levels of investment – overall, these farms will weather the crisis better."
In contrast, Courgeau said: "My neighbour, who grows non-irrigated corn and soybeans all year round, isn't sleeping because he can't see any way out or any model for change."
Experts say farmers can build resilience by diversifying their crops.
"Diversification ticks all the boxes," said Rogissart. "It reduces vulnerability to climate hazards by spreading risk. It reduces dependence on imported fertiliser and soybean meal, and protects the climate, water and biodiversity, all of which are crucial to the long-term viability of agricultural production."
While wheat, barley and corn largely dominate French fields, growing legumes such as peas, fava beans, alfalfa and lentils has the benefits of capturing nitrogen from the air and reducing the need for fertiliser. They are also alternative sources of protein to red meat.
"But as long as the price of protein, such as soy imported on a massive scale from South America, remains so low, Europeans will have no incentive to grow it," said Courgeau. "There is no way round it: the price has to be increased."
Alternatively, Rogissart suggests, the government pay higher subsidies for legumes.
Corn, widely used for animal feed, typically offers farmers the highest returns, said Buizard-Blondeau. "Many farms don't have the money to make the transition and are stuck in a cycle of dependence on state aid."
France spent around €54 billion of public funding on the farming and food sectors in 2024, according to Rogissart. "Yet less than 10 percent went to helping these sectors move towards more resilient systems."
She calls for a smarter use of state support. "It is hardly surprising that our system lacks resilience to withstand unforeseen events, given that public support does not help to build it."
Climate-proofing French agriculture means reconfiguring the entire value chain, including infrastructure, she said, something that can only be achieved with serious planning and major investment in the public sector.
"The coming years will be crucial in shaping the direction of public support."
A dairy farmer on his farm in Coutras, south-western France, on 22 September 2026.
Next year in particular could be decisive. Negotiations are taking place in Brussels on the European Union's 2028-2034 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), its shared system of farming subsidies and programmes.
The CAP is the EU's biggest area of spending, distributing around €56 billion a year among the 27 member states – including €9.4 billion for France, the bloc's leading agricultural producer by volume.
"We need to create room for manoeuvre at European level, both to adapt systems and to manage crises," said Courgeau. His collective is also calling on the EU to better target its subsidies to farmers who need them most, as well as to regulate markets to ensure prices reflect the cost of agricultural production.
The new CAP is expected to give national governments greater freedom of action, but could also erode environmental safeguards.
The European Environmental Bureau, a network of NGOs, says it is concerned the new policy will not ring-fence funding for the green transition, help farmers reduce the number of livestock they keep, or revise a payment system that results in most CAP funds going to the largest farms.
Extra taxes
Some argue that France needs a more creative approach to funding agricultural adaptation.
The Young Farmers organisation wants consumers to contribute via a tax on "meals served outside the home – in supermarkets, traditional restaurants, collective catering and takeaway outlets", said Buizard-Blondeau.
His group has proposed adding a 10 cent charge per meal sold by businesses that fail to comply with French legislation that requires 50 percent of products to be local or quality-certified. It estimates the measure has the potential to generate around €1 billion.
He proposes a more radical option: taxing wealthy urban property owners, and specifically the heirs of the tens of thousands of "baby boomers" expected to pass on an estimated €7-10 trillion over the next 15 years.
"It is all the previous generations who produced the emissions that are leading to climate change. We know there is a very strong correlation between income levels, wealth and the impact on the climate.
"It would make sense to recover part of these wealth transfers to finance adaptation, particularly in agriculture."
A Tessera crop map of Senegal's groundnut basin in 2021, showing millet (dark green), groundnut (pink), sorghum (yellow), cowpea (orange), rice (purple), trees (light green), fallow land (dark brown) and other crops (red), with areas excluded from the analysis in black. Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2021).
Credit: Madeline Lisaius / Tessera, University of Cambridge
Food in Senegal is mostly grown on small-scale, rain-dependent farms, leaving much of the population vulnerable to climate shocks, according to the World Food Programme. However, satellite crop mapping technologies designed to monitor climate’s impact on farming are largely beyond the reach of the West African country.
A new analysis of Senegalese croplands using an artificial intelligence developed at the University of Cambridge shows how technological benefits enjoyed by industrial agriculture could be brought to smallholder farms in Senegal and other countries in the Global South.
Researchers used Cambridge’s Tessera, an open-source AI model trained on satellite images, to map crops in Senegal’s groundnut basin. They found that Tessera was more accurate than current methods, getting the right result 84% of the time in tests while using only a fraction of computational resources and pre-labelled data. In one scenario, it performed 28% better than the next-best model.
This suggests that Tessera could become an important tool for governments and food security organisations, particularly in areas in the Global South where ground data is difficult or expensive to gather, said lead author Madeline Lisaius, who helped develop Tessera when she was a PhD student at Cambridge’s Department of Computer Science and Technology.
“Accurate and up-to-date crop statistics can guide food security planning and help decide where best to target support. But most local governments and bodies can only afford to collect ground data every few years,” Lisaius said. “With Tessera, you can train on the data you already have and extend it into the years in between, with more accurate crop information than baseline methods have ever been able to provide.”
Governments, NGOs and other food security organisations can begin using the technology to produce their own crop statistics now, she added.
The research is given added urgency by this year’s El Niño, which scientists say is the strongest ever recorded. The climate phenomenon is known to disrupt rainfall patterns in West Africa and past strong events have brought prolonged drought to the region.
“Reliable agricultural data is essential to anticipate food security and climate-related risks. In Senegal, WFP is working with national partners to explore how geospatial data and artificial intelligence can strengthen food security monitoring systems and support faster, more informed decision-making,” said Pierre Lucas, Representative and Country Director of the United Nations World Food Programme in Senegal.
Like much of West Africa, Senegal’s agriculture is dominated by smallholder producers, who grow crops on plots not much larger than a football field. As the paper makes clear, knowing what’s grown where allows for “informed decision making at regional, national and global scales that can mean survival for vulnerable people.”
Currently, when governments and food security organisations estimate crop production, they base their calculations on information either collected on the ground, which can be painstakingly slow and hard to gather, or derived from expensive computational analyses of satellite imagery.
Tessera offers an alternative way of mapping crops, a key step in estimating production. Its underlying model analyses a year’s worth of satellite images to compress each 10-metre point of land into a string of numbers, known as an embedding. That embedding carries information about how the land (and what grows on it) changes over time. A simple algorithm with a few calibration data points can then turn the embedding into a large-scale crop map.
In the study, the researchers compared Tessera with two satellite mapping methods widely used for monitoring agriculture, as well as Google DeepMind’s AlphaEarth, which is similar to Tessera but whose underlying model is not public. Each method was used to map crops for 2018, 2019 and 2021, then assessed according to accuracy, reliability, reusability and computational cost.
As well as outperforming the other methods, Tessera held up best when trained on one year’s data and applied to another. This suggests it can be used in later years without the need for new ground surveys every year.
The study has some limitations, in particular a drop in accuracy between 2018 and 2021 that the researchers think is linked to the quality of the ground survey data. It also did not test for secondary crops in fields where more than one crop is grown, which could change the overall accuracy in the most diverse locations.
Lisaius is keen to stress that Tessera’s biggest advantage is that it brings the power of sophisticated satellite analysis to the hands of those who don’t typically have access to it.
“One of the great contributions of this technology is not that it’s perfect, but that it’s incredibly accessible,” she said. “It’s a step towards greater geospatial data democratisation.”
The current study builds on previously published research which demonstrated Tessera’s ability to map small fields in Austria. The research was supported by UK Research and Innovation and Mantle Labs.
Embedding-based Crop Type Classification in the Groundnut Basin of Senegal
Article Publication Date
29-Sep-2026
Sunday, September 20, 2026
French cereal farmers experiment with African sorghum to beat the heat
Europe's maize crops have been hit hard by this summer's heatwaves and ongoing drought, with French producers saying almost half of this year's harvest is unusable. To prepare for hotter, drier conditions, some cereal farmers are experimenting with sorghum – a crop from sub-Saharan Africa that requires less water than maize – although making a living from it remains a long way off.
Sorghum is the world's fifth most important cereal crop, after wheat, maize, rice and barley.
It is widely grown across sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia for human consumption, while elsewhere – particularly in the Americas – it is also extensively used as animal feed.
Interest in the crop is growing in France, which in 2024 became Europe's largest producer with some 103,000 hectares cultivated, according to the Chamber of Agriculture.
In Essonne, south of Paris, fields of wheat and rapeseed stretch out almost endlessly. Yet among the yellow and gold squares, a four-hectare patch of green and red stands out.
"The characteristic of sorghum is that it has an ear that produces small green balls, which turn red. We harvest these beads between September and November, depending on the weather."
Sorghum thrives in hot temperatures. AP - Nati Harnik
‘Plant of the future’
Native to sub-Saharan Africa, sorghum grows in hot, dry regions and thrives in temperatures of between 25C and 35C.
France’s cooler climate was once poorly suited to sorghum, but over the past 15 years cultivation has steadily expanded.
"I settled on my farm 10 years ago and I said to myself that with climate change, if we don't make decisions now, we're going to hit a wall – we won't be able to sustain a 42-year career without change.
"So I started looking into certain plants, especially plants from Africa, and I came across sorghum, which is considered by the World Wildlife Fund and the United Nations as a 'plant of the future' – an eco-friendly option."
Sorghum generally requires less water than maize, while its deep root system, which can reach up to two metres, allows it to make better use of available moisture and makes it more resistant to drought.
However, it is not a miracle crop. The three completely dry months this summer still affected some ears, leaving them yellowed and dried out.
It generally takes 10 to 15 years to fully master a crop, and the two farmers are still finding their way.
"There's a lot to learn," Joiris admitted. "It's true that I don't know enough yet, so we're refining things and trying to improve. This year I had some problems because slugs came and ate the young plants, but in some ways the area with fewer plants is doing better than the one with plenty, because they had more water."
There is still some way to go. Even once production becomes more reliable, however, farmers will need a market for the crop.
But for farmers, he says, the main obstacle is economic: expanding sorghum production only makes sense if there is sufficient demand.
"Even if sorghum appears to be a good option in the face of climate change, if consumers don’t follow suit, farmers cannot afford to plant more hectares," he said.
Demand remains limited, both from livestock farmers using sorghum as animal feed and from consumers buying the grain for human consumption.
For now, their experiment shows that adapting crops to a hotter, drier climate is only part of the challenge – farmers also need buyers willing to make those new crops economically viable.
This article was adapted from the original version in French by Orianne Gendreau.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Genome assembly of rice stink bug offers new data-informed tool in fight against costly pest
First chromosome-scale genome assembled for rice stink bug
University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture
Rich Adams, an assistant professor of agricultural statistics for the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, is the corresponding author of a study that assembled the genome of the rice stink bug, one of the most significant threats to rice, a staple food for nearly half of the world’s population and a major crop in Arkansas. The work identified gene families associated with feeding, host adaptation and detoxification, as well as genes that may play roles in insecticide resistance.
By John Lovett University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Scientists are getting a leg up on the rice stink bug, one of the most significant threats to rice, a staple food for nearly half of the world’s population and a major crop in Arkansas.
With funding support from the Arkansas Biosciences Institute, researchers with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture's research arm, generated the first high-quality, chromosome-scale reference genome for the rice stink bug, Oebalus pugnax, identifying more than 13,000 genes with broad biological and agricultural relevance.
The development created a foundational resource to help scientists better understand how the insect feeds, adapts to host plants and potentially develops resistance to insecticides. The study, published in theJournal of Heredity, provides the most detailed genomic analysis to date of the rice stink bug, which feeds on more than 15 host plant species, including grain sorghum, and has shown resistance to pyrethroid insecticides in some populations.
“This gives us our first chromosome-scale view of the rice stink bug genome,” said Rich Adams, an assistant professor of agricultural statistics for the experiment station and corresponding author of the study. “We were able to assemble much of the nuclear genome, identify more than 13,000 genes and uncover genetic features involved in the insect’s biology and interactions with agricultural systems. It creates a foundation and hypothesis for future studies of rice stink bug biology and management.”
Adams is also a teaching faculty member with department of entomology and plant pathology in the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences at the University of Arkansas and the experiment station’s Center for Agricultural Data Analytics.
The genome assembly provided researchers with the first predicted chromosomes and their gene content. It also revealed evidence of roughly 21,000 non-coding RNAs, Adams said. The analysis identified genes with predicted roles in plant digestion, including carbohydrate-active enzymes, and uncovered expansions and contractions in gene families associated with key life history traits and agricultural impact.
Using advanced sequencing technologies, researchers reconstructed the rice stink bug's 826-million-base-pair genome with unprecedented resolution. The work identified gene families associated with feeding, host adaptation and detoxification, as well as genes that may play roles in insecticide resistance.
“This genome provides a foundation for studying genome structure, gene family evolution, plant feeding, host adaptation, detoxification and potential insecticide resistance,” said Allen Szalanski, a professor of entomology and plant pathology for the experiment station and a co-author of the study.
The new research builds on findings from a previous study by Szalanski, Adams and colleagues with UADA and Florida A&M University that examined genetic variation among rice stink bug populations across Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida and Cuba.
In that earlier study, published in Florida Entomologist, researchers analyzed a mitochondrial DNA marker and found high genetic diversity within O. pugnax populations. The results pointed to movement of rice stink bugs among southeastern states and suggested that two invasive Oebalus species found in Florida may have originated in Cuba.
“The first study helped us understand how rice stink bug populations vary genetically and move across regions,” Szalanski said. “This new genome gives us the tools to investigate the biological mechanisms behind those differences and how this pest adapts to rice production systems.”
Adams noted that a genome assembly represents a scientific starting point rather than a final product. As additional data become available, researchers can refine the assembly and use it to test new hypotheses about the evolution, behavior and management of rice stink bugs.
“Knowing more about the genetic basis of these traits can ultimately help researchers develop better monitoring and management strategies for rice producers,” Szalanski said.
Rice stink bugs cost Arkansas rice growers more than $16 million in 2017 alone, with similar costs estimated in 2018 and 2019, the first study noted.
About the researchers
Rokeya Akter, a graduate student in the department of entomology and plant pathology, was the first author of the study published in the Journal of Heredity. Co-authors included Mahamad Sayab Miya, Ph.D., a senior research assistant in the department, and Duane D. McKenna, the William Hill Professor of Biology and founding director of the Center for Biodiversity Research at the University of Memphis.
To learn more about ag and food research in Arkansas, visit aaes.uada.edu. Follow the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station on LinkedIn and sign up for our monthly newsletter, the Arkansas Agricultural Research Report. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit uada.edu. To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit uaex.uada.edu.
About the Division of Agriculture
The University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system.
The Division of Agriculture is one of 22 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on three system campuses.
Pursuant to 7 CFR § 15.3, the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services (including employment) without regard to race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, sexual preference, pregnancy or any other legally protected status, and is an equal opportunity institution.
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Media Contact: John Lovett U of A Division of Agriculture Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station (479) 763-5929 jlovett@uada.edu
Chromosome-scale genome assembly of the rice stink bug (Hemiptera: Oebalus pugnax) illuminates genome structure and gene family evolution in Pentatomidae
Wednesday, September 09, 2026
A grain being developed in the US could offer farmers a way to improve soil health while making crops more resilient to drought and heavy rainfall."
Skyler Grove holds a bundle of Kernza, Tuesday, July 28, 2026, at The Land Institute in Salina, Kan. AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel
A grain being developed in the US could offer farmers a way to improve soil health while making crops more resilient to drought and heavy rainfall.
Bryce Black kneels in a wheat field battered by intense drought. He holds two strands, remarking on how small the seed head is compared with what's normal.
After a late October rain last year, the fourth-generation farmer was optimistic about his 1,800 acres (728 hectares) of winter wheat. But a dry winter and spring brought extreme drought when the wheat needed moisture to establish itself. He ended up harvesting about 1,500 acres (607 hectares), but the yield was the lowest he's had since taking over his family's farm in 2017.
“It was just a grit your teeth and get through it type of deal,” says Black, who also grows corn, soybeans and milo on his family’s 4,500-acre (1,821 hectare) farm. “It is disheartening, you know? And it’s kind of hard to know what to do.”
When these weather events occur, farmers often look for new ways to protect their crops and their bottom line.
What is a perennial grain?
Some farmers are putting perennial grains in rotation to build resilience against extreme weather like drought and intense rainfall. Researchers are working to develop perennial versions of common annual grains like wheat, sorghum and rice, but the work is slow. And widespread adoption by farmers is challenging because perennial crops don’t yield as much, harvesting can be difficult and the market is still developing.
Despite the challenges, Black is intrigued. “I’m in survival mode,” he says. “If you can plant something and then you don’t have to go back for four or five years … that would save so much money, so much labour, everything. That’s what makes it enticing.”
Five years ago, David Mueller planted a 12-acre (5 hectare) field of Kernza, a perennial grain similar to native grasses found in parts of Europe and western Asia.
Perennial grains don’t require yearly planting, harvesting and replanting. Instead, they are planted once every few years.
Researchers say their root systems, which can reach several feet down, can access water deeper in the ground. That helps them better withstand short-term drought. And when heavy rain hits, the larger root structures can absorb excess water that would otherwise run off and erode the soil. Those deeper roots also sequester more carbon, reducing pollution in the atmosphere.
Relate
Inside the institute developing perennial crops
Kernza is one of several perennial grains under development at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, about an hour’s drive north of Mueller’s farm. The institute, which formally began domesticating Kernza in 2001, works with researchers and farmers around the world to develop perennial versions of wheat, rice, sorghum and other grain and oil seeds.
Some farmers in Southeast Asia and parts of Africa have started planting and harvesting perennial rice in their fields. Kernza, though, is furthest along and was first harvested on a farm in 2010.
In the US last year, Kernza was cultivated on 3,511 acres (1,421 hectares), compared with 37.2 million acres (15.1 million hectares) of winter, spring and Durum wheat harvested or planted in 2025-26.
Mueller's Kernza field is one of almost 100 acres (40 hectares) he has planted since 2018. He's used the crop to rebuild soil with drainage issues or to reestablish organic matter on his family's farm in Halstead, Kansas, where they also farm about 600 acres (243 hectares) each of corn and soybeans.
He also said Kernza uses about a third of the fertiliser that wheat needs, and because it's planted once every few years, he doesn't have to run gas-burning farm equipment as often.
“Not only are we able to utilise those acres profitably, but then we also build up that soil and work on some benefits to make it hopefully profitable to raise other crops on those fields in the future,” Mueller said.
Relate
Soil degradation is a serious threat
A 2024 United Nations report suggests that by 2050, soil degradation could cause more than $20 trillion in losses to the global economy. Farming perennials is less disruptive to that carbon-capturing soil.
Soil serves as a reservoir, capturing planet-warming carbon dioxide from the atmosphere that plays a role in climate change, experts say. Annual cultivation - the plow, plant, harvest and repeat cycle - strains soil formation, which takes thousands of years and rapidly degrades the farmland. Perennial roots can also bring that carbon deeper into soils, where it is less likely to be disturbed, says Laura van der Pol, The Land Institute's lead soil ecologist.
And soil that has more carbon in it tends to be better for plants.
“Incorporating perennials into our agriculture seems like really the only option to have soil for generations if we want to continue to grow food,” van der Pol said. “It’s hard to imagine getting to a place where we could have soil and abundant food without a perennial option.”
Relate
Lower yields and harvesting can be challenging
Pilot programs involving perennial grains are in the works around the world, testing how to grow them in different regions, climates and soils, but the research is early and slow-moving.
Chief among the challenges is the crops' grain yield, says Lee DeHaan, who leads the Institute’s Kernza domestication program. Kernza farmers are getting yields of about 20 to 40 per cent of what they might get from a wheat crop in the area. That's because a perennial crop has to use energy not only to grow seeds for grain, but also to grow roots to penetrate the soil so it can survive for more than a year. That contrasts with annual crops, which are engineered to put as much energy as possible into making as much seed as they can in one growing season.
Researchers at Cornell University also have found that establishing a Kernza field can be difficult as it contends with weeds in its first year. Finding the right seeding rate to maximise yield i also still being studied, says Matthew Ryan, a sustainable cropping professor at Cornell University.
Mueller says new varieties of Kernza are yielding more than previous ones, but the yield can decline as the crop ages. Yields on perennial rice are similar to annual ones, officials at The Land Institute say.
Harvesting Kernza specifically can be challenging. The grain is smaller than wheat, for example, and farmers and researchers are still finding the best ways to adapt farm equipment so the kernel isn't damaged during harvest.
Still, Ryan says farmers who experience crop loss due to drought or major flooding may be prompted to think about ways to build more resilience into their operations.
“I think farmers, more than other people, realise that the climate is changing,” he says. “They prompt people to think, and I feel like they are driving farmers to practice this.”
