Councillor Biographies
Wes Jackson, Co-Founder and President, The Land Institute
Wes Jackson is co-founder and President of The Land Institute, a geneticist-agronomist and one of the pioneers of sustainable agriculture. He earned a BA in biology from Kansas Wesleyan, an MA in botany from University of Kansas, and a PhD in genetics from North Carolina State University. He established and served as chair of one of the US's 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 widely recognized as a leader in the international movement for a more sustainable agriculture. He was a 1990 Pew Conservation Scholar, in 1992 became a MacArthur Fellow, and in 2000 received the "Right Livelihood" Award.
