Fred Iutzi

One notion I have about input costs, specifically fertilizer costs, is that as they rise over the coming decades, the de facto yield of annual grain crops will go down as the economically optimal rate for any given nutrient goes down. That further depresses the yield and cost targets for perennials.

That indicates there ultimately ample realistic market break-in targets for perennial grains (and other perennial staple crops!) to hit, provided we continue to drive yields up and costs down. 3/3

Maize and rice are in a yield class by themselves, then come some types of wheat, then soybean, canola, and other types of wheat, then rye, oats, and yet other types of wheat, etc. So there are many, many benchmarks to achieve full or fractional yield parity with. 2/

Nice review. You made a reasonable choice as to level of detail to engage in your article, but in some contexts it's worth pointing out the extremely wide range of yields among grain crops regarded as being fully technologically mature. 1/

Specialist sees agroforestry gaining ground For some grain farmers, diversification can mean growing soybeans and raising cattle. For others, it involves planting crops and trees side by side.

“There are a million different ways of doing agroforestry,” Oviatt said. “You have to take the different components and see what works on your farm.”

Staff member MJ Oviatt talks about #agroforestry in last week's story from Illinois Farmer Today!

agupdate.com/illinoisfarm...

What can we learn from livestock producers about marketing #agroforestry products?

Free webinar hosted by the #AgroforestryCoalition
Thursday, September 4th
9am PT / 10am MT / 11am CT / 12pm ET

Register at agroforestrycoalition.org/event/grassf...

Pushed out by Trump, New Jersey ecologist launches bid for Congress Megan O’Rourke hopes to be a voice for science, also touts her blue-collar roots

I don’t endorse candidates but a scientist who worked on agriculture and climate change before Trump eliminated her job? LFG Jersey girl @meganorourke.com!

www.science.org/content/arti...

Gotta go old school. ; )

Nobody:

Smith (1914):

Available in a non-ear-amputating strap style: ❌️ ✅️

Good old 'vid. It's an American tradition.

Covid was my souvenir from the last World Congress on Agroforestry.

Good time to follow our friends at @canopyfm.bsky.social on their new Bluesky account!

I'm giving a free webinar "Black Currants in the US:
From Banishment to
Revival" As part of the Far North Currant Festival in Fairbanks, Alaska. Tuesday, Aug. 12, noon-1 p.m. (Alaska
Standard Time). Register here: bit.ly/AKBlackCurrant

This really is the quintessence of CoMO.

"Long-term threat defeat" is just deep ecology with 10x the testosterone.

Sorry, I'm having a hard time visualizing the change unaided.

##

Joanna Macy, 1929-2025

This Colombian 'hotel for cows' could help reduce deforestation in the Amazon Clearing land for cattle and cows is the single biggest driver of rainforest loss in the Amazon. This "hotel for cows" in Colombia offers a solution.

Timothy Searchinger, a CHW affiliate and senior research scholar at Princeton University, explains how silvopasture – the intentional integration of trees, grasses and livestock – could increase cows' productivity and reduce deforestation in South America. tinyurl.com/2hhynr99

If you're interested in #agroforestry, there's no better follow on Bluesky than the Savanna Institute.

Two workers wearing PPE planting seedlings underneath solar panels on a sunny day

We have gotten currants in the ground under solar panels! going to test different varieties of currants under different kinds of solar panels. #energysky 🌾🧪🌱🫐

We hope you'll join us at an event this summer!

We have some exciting events in the coming months across Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana. These are great opportunities to get to know our organization and to see #agroforestry in action. Find an event near you at: www.savannainstitute.org/events/

* undergrad labor exploitation intensifies *

I have spent so much breath reminding people that nothing resembling a farmers market was ever a major component of historical town and small city food systems in the Midwest, that I sometimes forget the task also exists of providing the opposite reminder for other geographies. : )

Note that I am not REMOTELY qualified to make this prediction, so caveat emptor.

Prediction: the devastation will be real, but sustained fixation on zero-click will gradually transform Google Search into mid-1990s Yahoo: mediocre content tacked together with mediocre search. It will be neither hot nor cold, we will spit it from our mouths, & a real knowledge web will reemerge.