The realities of industrialization are all around us. No “ain’t-it-awful” checklist is necessary. What we must think about, therefore, is an agriculture with a human face. We must give standing to the new pioneers, the homecomers bent on the most important work for the next century—a massive salvage operation to save the vulnerable but necessary pieces of nature and culture, and to keep the good and artful examples before us. It is time for a new breed of artists to enter front and center, for the point of art, after all, is to connect. This is the homecomer I have in mind: the scientist, the accountant who converses with nature, a true artist devoted to the building of agriculture and culture to match the scenery presented to those first European eyes.
Wes Jackson
“Becoming Native to Our Places” in Nature as Measure
