Press Release

Dr. James E. Horne (Click on photo for high resolution image)

Kerr Center President Honored for Lifetime of Work for Sustainable Agriculture

Citing his years of leadership in focusing “the world’s attention on sustainable agriculture,” Keep Oklahoma Beautiful (KOB) honored Dr. James E. Horne with its Lifetime Achievement award on November 17th at the Skirvin Hilton Hotel in Oklahoma City.

Horne is president and chief executive officer of the Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture, a non-profit educational foundation headquartered near Poteau.

Lifetime Achievement recipients are chosen by the KOB board of directors “from among those Oklahomans who have shown a strong commitment to improving, preserving, beautifying and sustaining Oklahoma’s environment.”

Jim Horne receives Lifetime Achievement Award from Keep Oklahoma Beautiful Board President Jan L. Kunze.

Jim Horne receives Lifetime Achievement Award

“Dr. Horne has an extraordinary passion for transforming conventional agriculture with daring innovation, creativity and rock solid research,” said the group. “He continues to find ways to incorporate sustainable practices into the farming industry.” 

Horne received the award during KOB’s 19th annual Environmental Excellence Awards dinner. It was one of twenty awards given to Oklahoma communities, businesses and individuals for efforts as wide ranging as recycling to planting trees to monitoring water for pollutants. 

Horne said he would accept the award on behalf of the Kerr Center, and he thanked center staff and trustees for their work and support.

Trained as an agricultural economist, Horne joined the center in 1972. He has since guided the foundation in the development of extensive sustainable agriculture educational programs for Oklahoma’s farmers and ranchers.

Sustainable agriculture is an approach to agriculture that emphasizes environmental stewardship. Kerr Center programs show agricultural producers ways to conserve soil, protect water quality, decrease use of pesticides and fossil fuels, and preserve biodiversity, as well as find new markets and increase profitability.

The center sponsors workshops for Oklahoma producers, does research and demonstrations at its ranch in Poteau, and has a website with many free resources online.

In its commendation, Keep Oklahoma Beautiful also said Horne is “known for championing the ordinary hard working farmer who is too often forgotten.”

Horne grew up on a small family farm near Roosevelt in southwest Oklahoma. His education includes a BS in Agriculture Education and a MS in Agriculture Economics, both from Oklahoma State University.  He completed a Ph.D. in Biology in Russia.

He is the co-author of The Next Green Revolution: Essential Steps to a Healthy, Sustainable Agriculture, published in 2001.

Put at the top of New Farm magazine’slist of important books about sustainable agriculture, the book is used in sustainable ag education around the world.

The lifetime achievement award is given “to a person for a body of work spanning at least 25 years, showing outstanding achievement in leadership and environmental stewardship through efforts producing obvious improvements and preservation of Oklahoma’s environment.”

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