THE TASK, he wrote in New Roots for Agriculture, "is to build an
agriculture that is resilient to human folly, an agriculture that rewards
wisdom and patience."

"We don't need one more breakthrough in agriculture," he said. "We need to
stare hard at America's fields -- for a long time -- and then reach into the
vast literature in evolutionary biology and ecology to learn the rules and
laws at work on the land before we got here, and out of this knowledge, put
together a new synthesis, a truly new paradigm for agriculture."
Wes Jackson