Information
The Land Institute was founded in 1976, by the biologist and botanist Wes Jackson, in Kansas. The Right Livelihood Award Laureate and author of various books primarily breeds perennial useful plants and cereals. His main concerns are concepts for a sustainable agriculture, which prevent the diffusion of the earth.
“It is not that agriculture has a problem - it is the problem”, says Wes Jackson. “It always has been, even when you look back 10000 years. That is when the loss of our ecological capital started. Ever since we started digging up the earth, year by year, the soil has been victim of wind and rain. We must stop treating the earth like dirt. Just like oil, it is a non-renewable resource and an essential foundation of our existence. Since, 70 percent of the calories a human being needs for survival come from crops, rice, corn and potatoes - nearly all cultivated areas get ploughed every year, over and over. That might have been the rule for the last 10000 years, but it surely is not normal.”
Wes Jackson’s main goal is to extract the full productivity of nature, using minimal energy and resources, dispensing of the use of chemicals. Through his extensive research, Wes Jackson has developed high yielding, winter proof and ecologically manageable crop and especially perennial plants, partly crossbreed from wild grown and cultivated plants. The plants are permanently rooted in the soil and can be harvested every year. With this new procedure, a diffusion of the ground is prevented and a sustainable agriculture becomes possible. Jackson’s goal is to copy nature instead of subduing it. He is also working at finding alternatives for the use of fossil fuels in agriculture.
„If we are unable to develop a sustainable agriculture, we will also fail in sustaining the rest of society. If a transition from industrial agriculture to a sustainable agriculture succeeds, we would have a prototype of change that would influence all other sectors of society. We would have a role model, an analogy, maybe even a new philosophical foundation for the future.”
Short Description and Facts
| Members/Size: | medium | Email: | info@landinstitute.org |
| Foundation Date: | 1976 | Webseite: | Land Institute |
| Address: | E Water Well Rd 2440 | Phone: | 01 (785) 823-5376 |
| 67401Salina | Fax: | 01 (785) 823-8728 |
Arbeitet an den folgenden Globalen Herausforderungen
Has projects with following themes
The Project Perennial Grain Cropping Research is a long-term project that develops seeds, which do not have to be reseeded every year. Aim of the project is to protect the soil and to enable sustainable agriculture on a larger scale.
The Climate and Energy Project (CEP) deals with the consequences of climate change. Their primary goal is to sensibilize the societies, in the Mid-West of the USA, for the global consequences of the climate change and to introduce possible life style changes.
