Quotes About Agriculture

Weed and wheat cannot grow together in peace.

According to the USDA, it takes 11 calories of fossil fuel to produce 1 calorie of protein in the form of meat, poultry, or fish; soy is forty-five times more efficient.

Many people sow rice in their fields and expect to harvest maize.

Praise a large domain, cultivate a small estate.

O farmers, pray that your summers be wet and your winters clear.

Ah too fortunate farmers, if they knew their own good fortune!

And no less happy he who knows the rural gods.

Everyone must hoe his plot daily…

We must cultivate our garden.

"I have no more than twenty acres of ground," he replied, "the whole of which I cultivate myself with the help of my children; and our labor keeps off from us the three great evils - boredom, vice, and want."

Fertilizer played a greater role in this case than computers.

Farmers buy a lot of computers.

Even after a bad harvest there must be sowing.

Drive your cart and plow over the bones of the dead.

The mown grass is growing again nearly to our knees; we will take a second crop of hay from this field, rich and green and starred with moon daisies, buttercups and the bright, blowsy heads of poppies.

their fields. They will be free

La frénésie qu'est devenu le travail agricole est comme le signe d'une discordance grave avec les rythmes de l'univers. Les tracteurs vont et viennent. Ils exigent des terres aussi planes et vastes que possible. Ils répandent des poisons violents afin, paraît-il, que les hommes puissent manger. Quelques-uns ont en effet mangé, puis ont trop mangé, et leur vie est devenue une seule et unique préoccupation lancinante et triste : comment digérer ? (p.217)

L'agriculture moderne a certes résolu les insuffisances en terme quantitatifs, ce qui a permis la sécurité alimentaire, mais au prix d'une insalubrité croissante.

Contrairement à l'agrochimie, l'agroécologie repose sur un constat qui détermine toute la problématique : le sol est un organisme vivant à part entière et non un substrat neutre destiné à recevoir des engrais de synthèse.

How did the Farm Bill achieve overwhelming support from Congress in the face of such widespread calls for reform?...In exchange for leaving support for the large commodity crop farmers in place, House and Senate negotiators packaged support for nearly everyone else into the bill.

O fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint, agricolas

Such plants are weeds only to those who make a business of selling and applying chemicals.

The question of chemical residues on the food we eat is a hotly debated issue. The existence of such residues is either played down by the industry as unimportant or is flatly denied. Simultaneously, there is a strong tendency to brand as fanatics or cultists all who are so perverse as to demand that their food be free of insect poisons. In all this cloud of controversy, what are the actual facts?

the Handbook of Economics series (which has volumes on agriculture, development, education, labor, and many other sectors), the Annual Review of Economics, and the Journal of Economic Perspectives are all good sources for reviews