Wes Jackson was to make growing food less violent.

Crops we live on are annual. They have to be replanted every year. The rich magic soil has to be ripped up anew every year.

Wes Jackson and the staff at the Land Institute in Kansas are working on breeding perennial crops so we can eat without ripping up the soil so much.

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Perennial plants come up every year without being replanted. So if we had perennial plants the soil could stay where it is and get richer and richer while growing food for humans to eat.

Wes Jackson spoke at a graduation of World College West, which was a small, Marin County college for very idealistic young people who wanted to help the world get better.

When he spoke to them he said, "Like everything in nature, you are more beautiful than you are useful, and nothing you do will ever be as important as what you are."