Living Roots: The Promise of Perennial Foods

This event will feature Keefe Keeley of the Savanna Institute and Laura Paine of University of Wisconsin Extension, both contributors to the new book Living Roots: The Promise of Perennial Foods. Editors Liz Carlisle and Aubrey Streit Krug will moderate the conversation, perennial refreshments will be served, and copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing.

About The Book: Living Roots makes the case for putting perennial foods at the center of our farms and our plates, to add flavor and nutrients to our diets while reducing emissions and making our food system more resilient to climate change and economic uncertainty. With contributions from James Beard Award-winning chefs, Macarthur genius grant-winning scientists, and a host of farmers who are leading the way on perennializing agriculture, the book takes readers on a behind-the-scenes tour of the largest food forest in the United States, the test plots developing the first commercial perennial grains, and the vast grasslands where Indigenous communities are returning bison to their prairie homelands. In the process, each contributor shares their unique story of learning with these long-lived plants about how to root deeper in the face of existential challenges, speaking directly to readers charting their own path on a rapidly changing planet.

Doors open at 6pm and programming starts at 6:30pm.

Liz Carlisle is an Associate Professor in the Environmental Studies Program at UC Santa Barbara, where she teaches courses on food and farming. Born and raised in Montana, she got hooked on agriculture while working as an aide to organic farmer and U.S. Senator Jon Tester, which led to a decade of research and writing collaborations with farmers in her home state. She has written three books about regenerative and organic farming: Lentil Underground, Grain by Grain, and Healing Grounds, and she is co-editor of the new edited collection Living Roots: The Promise of Perennial Foods. Prior to her career as a writer and academic, she spent several years touring rural America as a country singer.

Aubrey Streit Krug is a writer and researcher who investigates relationships among humans, plants, and places. She is the Director of the Perennial Cultures Lab at The Land Institute, where her team leads social and cultural research and educational efforts like civic science that feature learning with communities to help realize more just, diverse, and perennial grain agricultures. Her most recent project, co-edited with Liz Carlisle, is the essay collection Living Roots: The Promise of Perennial Foods. Aubrey grew up in rural Kansas, where her parents farm wheat and raise cattle. Her curiosity about grassland stories and plants led her to earn a PhD in English and Great Plains Studies. She loves rocky prairie hillsides and lives in Kansas.

Laura Paine is a Grazing Coordinator and Resource Conservationist with University of Wisconsin Extension and the Natural Resources Conservation Service. She has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in plant science. Her 30+ years of work experience includes research, education and market development work for grass-fed and organic farmers through multiple agencies and organizations in Wisconsin. Laura and her husband live on their 89-acre farm near Columbus, WI where they raised grass-fed beef for nearly 20 years. Their farm now supports an early career grazier raising cow-calf pairs.

Keefe Keeley is the Executive Director of the Savanna Institute, where he leads the organization’s work to advance agroforestry as a solution for land, climate, and farming communities. His experience includes farm business, research, public agency, and civil society initiatives, and his academic background includes degrees in biology from Swarthmore College and in ecology and agricultural science from University of Wisconsin-Madison. Keeley also spent a year on farms in four continents as a Watson fellow and co-authored a bioregional anthology called The Driftless Reader. He was raised on a farm in Wisconsin’s Driftless Area, where the Savanna Institute runs a 787-acre farm campus for agroforestry research and demonstration, and lives in nearby Madison with his family.

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