Terry Gips began championing sustainable agriculture in 1974, when his ideas were deemed ridiculous and unworkable, not only by governmental agencies and major agricultural schools, but even by many environmental groups.

Gips' years of writing, speaking, documenting and lobbying have defined the concept and made it so understandable and "workable" that 170 nations have now committed to achieving sustainable agriculture.

But this is just one of the issues that have consumed his life. Time after time, Gips has worked long hours, often unpaid, for a cause, starting with tutoring inner city kids and working with teen gangs and migrant workers in high school. He went on to lead anti-war protests, challenge military purchasing mismanagement, and reform student government at his college.

Because he got an Air Force General to admit Ernie Fitzgerald had been fired for revealing cost overruns, Gips helped get Fitzgerald reinstated. And, Gips successfully fought entrenched interests to establish the Sacramento Community Garden Program, creating 20 gardens involving 4,000 people in blighted urban areas where projects had never succeeded before.

While he's worked for these causes, he's supported himself by selling peanuts at a ballpark, cleaning toilets at a fast food restaurant, working on an assembly line, selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door, and pruning grape vines.*

Gips has not only chosen a precarious economic life, he's also risked bodily harm as he gathered accounts of environmental and human rights abuses. He's been interrogated by armed soldiers in Honduras, chased at gun point, and held hostage in a jungle. He's ducked Soviet officials to smuggle out evidence of human rights abuses, and he's narrowly escaped being pushed from a moving train in India while reporting on pesticide contamination.

Asked about his unusual career, Gips says, "It was always second nature to me to take a risk and stand up when it was needed because I had excellent role models," citing his parents, plus Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf. Although some people see his life as one of hard work and long hours, Gips sees it quite differently: "It's always given me a great deal of satisfaction. I feel very good and very complete, and I sleep well at night."

After working on rural policy in the White House under President Carter and challenging the practices of the global grain trade, Gips co-founded and directed the International Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture and was the Aveda Corporation's eco-warrior. Today, he's doing eco-trainings with the Natural Step and the Campaign for Petrochemical Alternatives, still speaking all over the country, putting forth the message that the earth is in danger, and that every person, community and business can help create a just, sustainable future.

Update: Terry Gips is the director of Sustainability Associates in Minneapolis.