Wes Jackson
| Wes Jackson | |
|---|---|
Wes Jackson
|
|
| Born |
15 June 1936 Topeka, Kansas |
| Residence | USA |
| Citizenship | USA |
| Nationality | United States |
| Fields |
Agronomy Agriculture Genetics |
| Institutions |
The Land Institute California State University Sacramento |
| Alma mater |
Kansas Wesleyan University University of Kansas North Carolina State University |
| Notable awards | Pew Conservation Scholar (1990) MacArthur Fellow (1992) Right Livelihood Award |
Wes Jackson (born 1936) is the founder and former president of The Land Institute. He is also a member of the World Future Council.
Jackson was born and raised on a farm near Topeka, Kansas. 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, Wes Jackson established and served as chair of one of the United States' first environmental studies programs at California State University, Sacramento.
Jackson then chose to leave academia, returning to his native Kansas, where he founded a non-profit organization, The Land Institute, in 1976. He still heads The Land Institute, which currently describes its main goal as the development of "Natural Systems Agriculture"; it also publishes The Land Report, a newsletter about American sustainable agriculture and agrarianism.
The Land Institute has explored alternatives in appropriate technology, environmental ethics, and education, but a research program in sustainable agriculture eventually became central to its work. In 1978 Jackson proposed the development of a perennial polyculture. He sought to have fields planted in polycultures, more than one plant in a field, as in nature.
Jackson also wanted to use perennials, which would not need to be replanted every year - reducing the need for frequent tillage, preventing erosion, and promoting plant-soil microbe relationships to establish and persist. The Land Institute attempts to breed plants not presently used in agriculture into effective producers of perennial grains in intercropping conditions. Jackson argues that this version of agriculture used "nature as model," and to pursue that end, The Land Institute has studied prairie ecology.
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