Wes Jackson

Wes Jackson is founder and president emeritus of The Land Institute. He established and served as chair of one of the country’s first environmental studies programs at California State University-Sacramento.

Wes is widely recognized as a leader in the international movement for a more sustainable agriculture. He was a Pew Conservation Scholar in 1990, a MacArthur Fellow in 1992, and received the Right Livelihood Award in 2000. Life magazine included him as one of 18 individuals predicted to be among the 100 important Americans of the 20th century. Smithsonian in 2005 included him as one of “35 Who Made a Difference.” He argues that one of the most important lessons that we as a species urgently need to learn is that we cannot continue to impose our hubris on the world around us.

“The history of Earth-abuse through agriculture has been horrendous. Essentially, all of nature’s ecosystems are perennial polycultures. Agriculture reversed that. Consequently, soil erosion became a problem. The wilderness has to become a standard against which we judge our agricultural and cultural practices.”

Location: Salina, Kansas USA

Organization: The Land Institute

Books: New Roots for Agriculture, Becoming Native to This Place, Consulting the Genius of the Place, and most recently Nature as Measure. 

Websites:
1) https://landinstitute.org/
2) https://www.postcarbon.org/lets-get-creaturely/

Video 1: Land & Soil

Video 2: Seizing an Alternative