section_path: Effects on the environment/Mitigations
section_name: Mitigations
paragraph_text: Mitigations
  
  Some of the impacts of growing cereals can be mitigated by changing production practices. Tillage can be reduced by no-till farming, such as by direct drilling of cereal seeds, or by developing and planting perennial crop varieties so that annual tilling is not required. Rice can be grown as a ratoon crop; and other researchers are exploring perennial cool-season cereals, such as kernza, being developed in the US.
  
  Fertilizer and pesticide usage may be reduced in some polycultures, growing several crops in a single field at the same time. Fossil fuel-based nitrogen fertilizer usage can be reduced by intercropping cereals with legumes which fix nitrogen. Greenhouse gas emissions may be cut further by more efficient irrigation or by water harvesting methods like contour trenching that reduce the need for irrigation, and by breeding new crop varieties.