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Illahee Series - Wes Jackson - Power, Change and FoodMore about Wes Jackson (courtesy of wikipedia): Jackson founded a non-profit organization, The Land Institute, in 1976. He is still head of 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.
The Land Institute explored alternatives in appropriate technology, 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 polyculture. 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 - that would leave the 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 conditions. Jackson argued that this version of agriculture used "nature as model", and to pursue that end The Land Institute has studied prairie ecology. 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 wheat, sorghum, and sunflower 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 straight-forward task, and will be accomplished by public and private agricultural engineers when the demand arrives. Wes Jackson is the author of several books and is recognized as a leader in the international sustainable agriculture movement. In 1971, Wes Jackson's first efforts to address growing environmental concerns, react to social concerns growing from the Civil Rights movement andopposition to the Vietnam War, and answer student requests for more relevant materials resulted in the environmental reader, Man and the Environment.[1][2] After leaving academia and establishing the Land Institute, Jackson published the book New Roots for Agriculture about looking to natural ecosystems, such as the prairie, to help solve the problem of soil erosion. Location
First Congregational Church 1126 SW Park
Portland, ORTraining for Transition in Portland April 9-10
Transition PDX will be sponsoring a two-day Training for Transition (T4T) on Friday and Saturday, April 9 and 10. The training will be held in the main hall of Sunnyside Methodist Church, 3520 SE Yamhill Street, Portland.
The T4T course is designed to introduce you to a community engagement model for responding and adapting to the threats of climate change, fossil fuel dependence and economic instability. It will give an introduction to the ideas underpinning the Transition Initiative, and the most important skills needed to get a Transition Initiative off the ground in your locality. The course is designed both for people who are already in a group working to achieve this, and those who are thinking of creating such a group.
This training will follow the Transition model in paying attention to both the outer work and the inner work necessary for a successful transition process. The course is participatory, action-learning-based and fun, with participants invited to share their own experience and learn from the different Transition projects represented in the group.
The cost of the training is $200, of which a $40 deposit will be due with your registration to hold your place. Registration information will be available in about a week. We hope to offer some partial scholarships, and will do our best to find rooms in members’ homes for visiting participants.
One of the two certified Transition US trainers will be David Johnson. After building an award-winning ecological house in Wales, David explored the overlap of ecology and spirituality through a Masters Degree program in Transpersonal Psychology with a concentration in Ecopsychology at Naropa University. During this time he also trained with Joanna Macy. This training informed his thinking around the inner aspects of Transition work. David was involved in a think tank set up by Rob Hopkins in the early days of Transition Town Totnes in England, and recently moved to Portland where he has been in the central group helping to bring the Transition approach here.
The other trainer, Lena Soots from Vancouver, BC, is a community educator and facilitator with a focus on community sustainability and resilience. With an academic background in Environmental Studies, Lena’s work has involved environmental consulting, community planning, local food system development and facilitation across a wide range of community settings. She is currently an Instructor and Research Associate with the Centre for Sustainable Community Development at Simon Fraser University and a PhD Candidate in the Faculty of Education. Lena’s current research is in transformative community learning and exploring the inner and outer dimensions of change. She is also a yoga instructor and tries to spend as much time as possible hiking in the mountains or paddling a canoe.
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