According to Wes, for over 200,000 years of our evolution we were "an ape with a 1530 cubic centimetre brain". During this time we needed no inbuild concept of sustainability. We could simply swing to the next tree to harvest the fruit and leaves and there was always another tree. We developed agriculture only 10,000 years ago, a meare 5% of our evol history. We have not learnt the new lessons required for sustainability and we are "a species out of context"

One explanation is that we live in a fallen world. Wes quotes Alfred Lord Whitehead, we are subject to "the remorseless inevitable working of things". Agriculture, according to Wes, may be our "dramatic tradegy", he says "the plough may have destroyed more future options for mankind than the sword". Jackson describes this as the problem OF agriculture not in agriculture. He says agriculture is a problem in itself.

But Wes has not given up the search for a more sustainable way of life. He describes himself as "intellectual pessimist but a glandular optimist".
The Lessons of the Prairie

The prairie was one of the most productive environments anywhere. Driving up from Matfield Green to Salina with Wes, we talked about the history and potential of the region and he said "few people recognise that this was once a grassland supporting populations of animals equivalent to the serengeti". Just on que, a pronghorn antelope lept across the road, causing us both to hold our breath and I felt my feet involuntarily pressing against the passenger footwell.

The prairie is sustainable, it has been there since the ice age. Some lessons from the prairie may be instructive in the search for sustainable agriculture. The prairie is made up of a mixture of perennial plants grown in a polyculture; like any natural system, it runs on sunlight. Because of the broad species diversity there is chemical diversity which protects the system against attack. Wes says "it would take a tremendous enzyme system on the part of an insect or pathogen to mow that diversity down". Although a grass-dominated system, it also contains legumes which sponsor its own nitrogen. The prairie is non-eroding - its' expansive root system will suck nutrients from parent rock material or subsoil and actually build it up.

Is it possible to build an agriculture based on the praire. Wes believes that a weak mimic of the system is possible, where nature is the measure or standard Again he quotes from Job “ask the fishes of the sea and they shall tell thee” and Virgil “before you plow a patch it is well to be aware of the winds" and Shakespeare (As You Like It) "the forest is the judge" and Blake “consult the genius of the place in all”.