John F. Kennedy Quotes

Nevertheless, the number of farmers, small as well as large, who are adopting the new seeds and new technology is increasing very rapidly, and the increase in numbers during the past three years has been phenomenal.

Agriculture is the new golf

The agricultural revolution transformed the earth and changed the fate of humanity. It produced an entirely new mode of subsistence, which remains the foundation of the global economy to this day.

Let me tell you about a place where technology won't work. When you walk onto a farm and are standing on soil, there is no technology that is going to take that soil and transform it into something that is five times more productive.

Because of technological limits, there is a certain amount of food that we can produce per acre. If we were to have intensive greenhouse agriculture, we could have much higher production.

We're going to move from a commodity economy where you basically grow the same kind of crops - where a kernel of corn is a kernel of corn is a kernel of corn - to an ingredient economy where there will be a kernel of corn that will be designed for fuel, there will be a kernel of corn designed for livestock.

The history of American agriculture suggests that you can have transformation without a master plan, without knowing all the answers up front.

Our thanks, and something more substantial than thanks, are due to the man engaged in the effort to produce a successful steam plow.

Consumers cannot enjoy the prices and variety we farmers produce without embracing the technologies we use.

Shall we encourage our young men to be farmers and mechanics? Yes, a thousand times yes, encourage them to become producers as well as consumers, to be owners and tillers of the soil as well as cultivators and rentors; teach them that it is just as honorable to be an honest farmer as to be a lawyer, teacher or a preacher, and the royal road to success and happiness is built on honest labor, either of muscle or brain.

… whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.

It is not known where he that invented the plough was born, nor where he died: yet he has effected more for the happiness of the world than the whole race of heroes and of conquerors, who have drenched it with tears, and manured it with blood, and whose birth, parentage, and education have been handed down to us with a precision proportionate to the mischief they have done.

These and other developments in the field of agriculture contain the makings of a new revolution. It is not a violent Red Revolution like that of the Soviets, nor is it a White Revolution like that of the Shah of Iran. I call it the Green Revolution

Surely, if we are going to be better at producing food of the right value, then we have to accept that genetic technology... is going to be part of that.

Autonomous tractors would enable a farmer to focus on the work that matters the most on a farm.

It's no good kicking progress In the teeth - there's nothing wrong with a tractor.

It's critically important for Europe to have a different way to think about the role of agriculture in society and the economy here.

Agriculture can trigger job-led economic growth, provided it becomes intellectually satisfying and economically rewarding.

Blessed be agriculture! if one does not have too much of it.

Ever since man began to till the soil and learned not to eat the seed grain but to plant it and wait for harvest, the postponement of gratification has been the basis of a higher standard of living and of civilization.

Agriculture engenders good sense, and good sense of an excellent kind.

In the food case in particular, one of the technologies that could help there - genetic technologies that could create better crops with higher yields and less need for water and fertilizer - is tremendously feared. Very little of that fear is scientifically grounded.

Here is an educational bombshell: Take from all of today's industrial nations all their industrial machinery and all their energy-distributing networks, and leave them all their ideologies, all their political leaders, and all their political organizations, and I can tell you that within six months, two billion people will die of starvation, having gone through great pain and deprivation along the way.

To achieve a Green Revolution, African farmers, must have access to land and security of tenure. They also need access to markets, technology and improved infrastructure.

Friends, the soil is poor, we must sow seeds in plenty for us to garner even modest harvests.