Wes Jackson
Encyclopedia
Early life and Education
Jackson was born and raised on a farm near Topeka, Kansas. After earning a BA in biologyBiology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
from Kansas Wesleyan University
Kansas Wesleyan University
Kansas Wesleyan University is a private four-year Methodist college founded in Salina, Kansas in 1886. It is affiliated with the United Methodist Church...
, an MA in botany
Botany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...
from the University of Kansas
University of Kansas
The University of Kansas is a public research university and the largest university in the state of Kansas. KU campuses are located in Lawrence, Wichita, Overland Park, and Kansas City, Kansas with the main campus being located in Lawrence on Mount Oread, the highest point in Lawrence. The...
, and a PhD in genetics
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
from North Carolina State University
North Carolina State University
North Carolina State University at Raleigh is a public, coeducational, extensive research university located in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. Commonly known as NC State, the university is part of the University of North Carolina system and is a land, sea, and space grant institution...
, Wes Jackson established and served as chair of one of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
' first environmental studies
Environmental studies
Environmental studies is the academic field which systematically studies human interaction with the environment. It is a broad interdisciplinary field of study that includes the natural environment, built environment, and the sets of relationships between them...
programs at California State University-Sacramento.
Jackson then chose to leave academia, returning to his native Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
, where he founded a non-profit organization, The Land Institute
Land Institute
The Land Institute is a non-profit research, education, and policy organization dedicated to sustainable agriculture based in Salina, Kansas, United States....
, 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.
Work with The Land Institute
The Land Institute explored alternatives in appropriate technologyAppropriate technology
Appropriate technology is an ideological movement originally articulated as "intermediate technology" by the economist Dr...
, 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
Perennial plant
A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...
polyculture
Polyculture
Polyculture is agriculture using multiple crops in the same space, in imitation of the diversity of natural ecosystems, and avoiding large stands of single crops, or monoculture...
. 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 - leaving soil more intact, preventing erosion, and allowing important relationships between soil and plant to continue. The Land Institute attempts to breed plants not presently used in agriculture into effective producers of perennial grains in intercropping
Intercropping
Intercropping is the practice of growing two or more crops in proximity. The most common goal of intercropping is to produce a greater yield on a given piece of land by making use of resources that would otherwise not be utilized by a single crop. Careful planning is required, taking into account...
conditions. Jackson argued that this version of agriculture used "nature as model", and to pursue that end The Land Institute has studied prairie
Prairie
Prairies are considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the dominant vegetation type...
ecology
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
.
Current and future work
Entering its third decade, The Land Institute is beginning to demonstrate progress in developing the perennial crops called for in the Natural Systems Agriculture model. Programs in wheatWheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
, sorghum
Sorghum
Sorghum is a genus of numerous species of grasses, one of which is raised for grain and many of which are used as fodder plants either cultivated or as part of pasture. The plants are cultivated in warmer climates worldwide. Species are native to tropical and subtropical regions of all continents...
, and sunflower
Sunflower
Sunflower is an annual plant native to the Americas. It possesses a large inflorescence . The sunflower got its name from its huge, fiery blooms, whose shape and image is often used to depict the sun. The sunflower has a rough, hairy stem, broad, coarsely toothed, rough leaves and circular heads...
are generating crop lines displaying both perenniality and agriculturally-significant seed yield.
Research on integrating these new plants into polycultures also continues. The Land Institute is not itself developing machinery suitable for one-pass harvesting of grain polycultures. It instead takes the position that integration of existing materials separation technology into harvesters is a straightforward task, and will be accomplished by public and private agricultural engineers when the demand arrives.
Author
Wes Jackson is the author of several books and is recognized as a leader in the international sustainable agricultureSustainable agriculture
Sustainable agriculture is the practice of farming using principles of ecology, the study of relationships between organisms and their environment...
movement. In 1971, Wes Jackson's first efforts to address growing environmental concerns, react to social concerns growing from the Civil Rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
movement and opposition to the Vietnam War
Opposition to the Vietnam War
The movement against US involvment in the in Vietnam War began in the United States with demonstrations in 1964 and grew in strength in later years. The US became polarized between those who advocated continued involvement in Vietnam, and those who wanted peace. Peace movements consisted largely of...
, and answer student requests for more relevant materials resulted in the environmental reader, Man and the Environment. After leaving academia and establishing the Land Institute
Land Institute
The Land Institute is a non-profit research, education, and policy organization dedicated to sustainable agriculture based in Salina, Kansas, United States....
, Jackson published New Roots for Agriculture, partially in reaction to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office
Government Accountability Office
The Government Accountability Office is the audit, evaluation, and investigative arm of the United States Congress. It is located in the legislative branch of the United States government.-History:...
on soil erosion
Erosion
Erosion is when materials are removed from the surface and changed into something else. It only works by hydraulic actions and transport of solids in the natural environment, and leads to the deposition of these materials elsewhere...
.
This book expanded on ideas presented in an 1978 article, "Towards a Sustainable Agriculture," about looking to natural ecosystems, such as the prairie
Prairie
Prairies are considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the dominant vegetation type...
, to help solve the problem of soil erosion. He collaborated with author Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry is an American man of letters, academic, cultural and economic critic, and farmer. He is a prolific author of novels, short stories, poems, and essays...
, with whom Jackson has shared a longtime friendship and correspondence, on "Meeting the Expectations of the Land," in response to a Council on Agricultural Science and Technology report on agrochemicals.
Jackson's Becoming Native to This Place, published in 1994, challenges readers to develop a relationship with their ecosystems and further develops the idea Natural Systems Agriculture. He was a 1990 Pew Conservation Scholar, in 1992 became a MacArthur Fellow, and in 2000 received the Right Livelihood Award
Right Livelihood Award
The Right Livelihood Award, also referred to as the "Alternative Nobel Prize", is a prestigious international award to honour those "working on practical and exemplary solutions to the most urgent challenges facing the world today". The prize was established in 1980 by Jakob von Uexkull, and is...
. His work is often referred to by author Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry is an American man of letters, academic, cultural and economic critic, and farmer. He is a prolific author of novels, short stories, poems, and essays...
, with whom Jackson has shared a longtime friendship and correspondence.
Works
Selected BibliographyPrimary Author:
- Man and the Environment (1971)
- New Roots for Agriculture (1980)
- Altars of Unhewn Stone: Science and the Earth (1987)
- Becoming Native to This Place (1994)
- Nature as Measure: The Selected Essays of Wes Jackson (2011)
- Consulting the Genius of the Place: An Ecological Approach to a New Agriculture (2011)
Contributor:
- Meeting the Expectations of the Land: Essays in Sustainable Agriculture and Stewardship (1984), Editor
- Soil and Survival: Land Stewardship and the Future of American Agriculture (1986), Introduction by
- From the Land: Articles Compiled from the Land 1941-1954 (1988), Introduction by
- Farming in Nature's Image: An Ecological Approach to Agriculture (1991), Forward by
- Life on the Dry Line: Working the Land, 1902-1944 (1992), Forward by
- From the Good Earth: A Celebration of Growing Food Around the World (1993), Forward by
- The Ecology of Hope: Communities Collaborate for Sustainability (1996), Forward by
- Protecting Public Health and the Environment: Implementing the Precautionary Principle (1999), Forward by
- Reclaiming the Commons: Community Farms and Forests in a New England Town (1999), Forward by
- The Virtues of Ignorance: Complexity, Sustainability, and the Limits of Knowledge (2008), Editor
- Wendell Berry: Life and Work (2007), Essay
Quotes
- “If we don’t get sustainability in agriculture first, sustainability will not happen.” (citation needed)
- “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.” (citation needed)
- “Ecosystem agriculturalists will take advantage of huge chunks of what works. They will be taking advantage of the natural integrities of ecosystems worked out over the millennia.” (citation needed)
- "If your life's work can be accomplished in your lifetime, you're not thinking big enough." (citation needed)
See also
- AgrarianismAgrarianismAgrarianism has two common meanings. The first meaning refers to a social philosophy or political philosophy which values rural society as superior to urban society, the independent farmer as superior to the paid worker, and sees farming as a way of life that can shape the ideal social values...
- Local foodLocal foodLocal food or the local food movement is a "collaborative effort to build more locally based, self-reliant food economies - one in which sustainable food production, processing, distribution, and consumption is integrated to enhance the economic, environmental and social health of a particular...
- No-till farmingNo-till farmingNo-till farming is a way of growing crops from year to year without disturbing the soil through tillage. No-till is an agricultural technique which increases the amount of water and organic matter in the soil and decreases erosion...
- PolyculturePolyculturePolyculture is agriculture using multiple crops in the same space, in imitation of the diversity of natural ecosystems, and avoiding large stands of single crops, or monoculture...
- Sustainable agricultureSustainable agricultureSustainable agriculture is the practice of farming using principles of ecology, the study of relationships between organisms and their environment...
- Yoshikazu KawaguchiYoshikazu Kawaguchiis the leading Japanese practitioner of the “natural farming” method popularized by Masanobu Fukuoka and has farmed by this method in Sakurai City, Nara Prefecture for 30 years...