Call for Farmers to Trial Perennial Vegetables on Market Gardens

There are many advantages to growing perennial vegetables such as improved carbon sequestration, soil health, farm ecology, and nutrition, and they are potentially less work to maintain than annuals. They’re becoming more widely adopted by gardeners, but can they be grown profitably by market gardeners and farmers to feed the masses? Let’s figure it out together!

I’m Michalina of Cicada Seeds and I’m interested in working with farmers to grow the body of knowledge around growing perennial vegetables on farms for profit. I’d like to see their wider adoption because of their many environmental benefits, potential for reduced labour, and ability of some species to grow in “marginal” areas, like flooded or dry land. Despite these advantages, there isn’t a lot of data on growing them in an efficient and profitable way (in Turtle Island/North America at least). Is it possible to grow them at scale? What’s the best way to plant, manage, harvest, package, market, and sell them to different types of customers? Which varieties thrive where? What pests and diseases pop up in different climates and how can we manage them?

Deadline to apply: February 28, 2026