Keynote Speakers

Wes Jackson

Wes Jackson, President of The Land Institute, was born in 1936 on a farm near Topeka, Kansas. After attending Kansas Wesleyan (B.A Biology), he studied botany (M.A. University of Kansas) and genetics (Ph.D. North Carolina State University). He resigned a tenured professorship at California State University-Sacramento in 1976 to found The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas.

Dr. Jackson’s writings include papers and books, the latest being Nature as Measure (2011) and Consulting the Genius of the Place: An Ecological Approach to a New Agriculture (2010), both published by Counterpoint Press. New Roots for Agriculture, 1980, outlines the basis for the agricultural research at The Land Institute.

The work of The Land Institute has been featured extensively in the popular media including National Geographic, Time Magazine, Yes! Magazine, The MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour, and National Public Radio's "All Things Considered." Life magazine named Wes Jackson as one of 18 individuals they predict will be among the 100 "important Americans of the 20th century."

Wes Jackson is a recipient of several awards and recognitions, including the Pew Conservation Scholars award (1990), a MacArthur Fellowship (1992) and the Right Livelihood Award (Stockholm), known as “Alternative Nobel Prize” (2000). In 2007 he received the University of Kansas Distinguished Service Award and was one of the 2011 recipients of the University of Kansas College of Liberal Arts & Sciences’ Distinguished Alumni Awards. Garden Club of America awarded him the Elizabeth Craig Weaver Proctor Medal in 2012.

Additional Information

• Consulting the Genius of the Place: An Ecological Approach to a New Agriculture
• Nature as Measure: The Selected Essays of Wes Jackson by Wes Jackson and Wendell Berry
• New Roots for Agriculture