Wes Jackson
From Free net encyclopedia
Wes Jackson is the founder and current president of The Land Institute.
After earning a BA in biology from Kansas Wesleyan University, an MA in botany from the University of Kansas, and a PhD in genetics from North Carolina State University, he established and served as chair of one of the United States' first environmental studies programs at California State University-Sacramento and then returned to his native Kansas to found The Land Institute in 1976. He is the author of several books including New Roots for Agriculture and Becoming Native to This Place and is recognized as a leader in the international sustainable agriculture movement. He was a 1990 Pew Conservation Scholar, in 1992 became a MacArthur Fellow, and in 2000 received the Right Livelihood Award (called the “alternative Nobel prize”). His work is often referred to by author Wendell Berry, with whom Jackson has shared a longtime friendship and correspondence.
Quotes
- “If we don’t get sustainability in agriculture first, sustainability will not happen.”
- “By beginning to make agriculture sustainable we will have taken the first step forward for humanity to begin to measure progress by its independence from the extractive economy.”