Wes Jackson Quotes

#1. The forces of power, particularly corporate power, are impatient with what is adequate for a coherent community. Because power gains so little from community in the short run, it does not hesitate to destroy community for the long run.

Wes Jackson

#2. I think the work in front of us is the first work task given our forbearers, which is to care for the garden. Now because it's the first thing commanded, maybe it's the first thing forgotten. But it is the first admonition and it is absolutely unequivocal. It is part of right livelihood.

Wes Jackson

#3. If we don't get sustainability right in agriculture first, it won't happen anywhere.

Wes Jackson

#4. If we are really serious about protecting the environment, the discharge pipes and stacks of industry would all plug directly into their intake side, and costs would not be externalized to a voiceless environment.

Wes Jackson

#5. If your life's work can be accomplished in your lifetime, you're not thinking big enough.

Wes Jackson

#6. As we search for a less extractive and polluting economic order, so that we may fit agriculture into the economy of a sustainable culture, community becomes the locus and metaphor for both agriculture and culture.

Wes Jackson

#7. Politicians are simply reflections of the public.

Wes Jackson

#8. The agriculture we seek will act like an ecosystem, feature material recycling and run on the contemporary sunlight of our star.

Wes Jackson

#9. The Christian message, like an ecosystem, is about process. In an ecological sense, the cross symbolizes a willingness to die so that the continuation of life might be served. Now we must extend our love to the unborn if we are to serve eternal life.

Wes Jackson

#10. We the people, so to speak, need to realize that if we can keep ourselves fed, we might get through this long dark tunnel of power down, and mitigate the consequences of CO2.

Wes Jackson

#11. Since nature has the most sustainable ecosystem and since ultimately agriculture comes out of nature, our standard for a sustainable world should be nature's own ecosystem.

Wes Jackson

#12. Instead of trying to understand agriculture in its own terms, acknowledge that agriculture ultimately comes out of nature. Right now agriculture is the No. 1 threat to biodiversity on the planet.

Wes Jackson