Jim Worstell, Ph.D. Agronomy and M.A. Social Psychology, is Coordinator of the Resilience Project. After growing up milking cows and raising hogs and corn in Missouri and then running his own farm in Kentucky, Jim has devoted the last 42 years to developing resilient agricultural systems in rural areas–most recently in Mississippi Delta of the US, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Armenia, Tanzania, Jamaica, Malawi, Angola, Mozambique, Uganda, Egypt, Republic of Georgia, Kenya, Ukraine, Moldova and the Ozarks in the US. He has held teaching and research positions in both 1890 and 1862 Land Grant Universities in the US and Ukraine through a Fulbright Fellowship.
Dr. Worstell was Executive Producer of an agricultural documentary, Spilled Milk, which won awards in 2007 at New York and Los Angeles Film Festivals and was invited to the Cannes Film Festival. He has been invited to give seminars and workshops to Universities and NGOs in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America in a total of 40 countries. He has assisted in development of new agribusinesses in several countries and directed programs for farmer group development, business planning, facility design/construction and policy change.
Dr. Worstell was one of the founding members of Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group and served on the President’s Council for Sustainable Development. He has served as Board member of National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, Consortium for Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, and Arkansas and Kentucky non-profit corporations focused on sustainable agriculture. He helped establish the Arkansas Department of Agriculture and the Delta Regional Authority.
For more details including lists of publications and consulting reports see below.
Resilience 