Valuing Care Work in the Movement toward Perennial Agricultures
The Land Institute is a global research non-profit organization, headquartered in Kansas, that is collaboratively developing perennial grain crops and cropping systems that sustain and are sustained by more just human communities. In this talk, we’ll describe the scientific and social dimensions of the growing movement toward diverse, perennial agricultures. Drawing on several practical case studies, ranging from internal learning to public research projects, we will share our ongoing efforts to better value the care work necessary to realize perennial agricultures and climate resilience. Finally, we’ll invite the audience to reflect on our stories and their own stories, experiences, and practices of learning to value care work.
Aubrey Streit Krug is a writer, teacher, and researcher who studies human-plant relationships and the connection between cultural and agricultural change. She serves as Director of the Perennial Cultures Lab at The Land Institute. Aubrey loves rocky prairie hillsides. She lives in the Smoky Hills and grew up in the Blue Hills, in a rural Kansas community settled by German Catholic farmers, where her family still lives and farms. Aubrey holds a PhD in English and Great Plains Studies from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Amy June Breesman is an artist, farmer, and seedkeeper serving as Land Relations Specialist at The Land Institute, investigating methods and pathways to responsive, place-based perennialization. Amy June was born and raised in the D.C. area and after nearly a decade in Philadelphia, transplanted herself to Lawrence, Kansas in 2023. She considers all of these places to be home, in addition to her Eastern Shawnee tribal lands in Northeast Oklahoma. Amy June holds a BFA in Photography from the Corcoran College of Art & Design and has been farming since 2019.