Andrea Leadsom Quotes

Whole Foods has been brilliant at changing the way food is produced because they just won't buy it if it doesn't meet their standards.

The meat and poultry industries are outstanding industries, and it's going to be a very natural fit for me.

It may be assumed as a fixed truth that the prosperity and riches of the farmer must depend on the prosperity and good national regulation of trade.

The sooner we rein in the red tape factory in Washington, D.C., the sooner small businesses can get back to creating jobs and helping more Americans find an honest day's work.

[Defending agricultural subsidies:] France is the world's second-biggest exporter of agriculture products, and it must remain so.

Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread.

To hinder, besides, the farmer from selling his goods at all times to the best market, is evidently to sacrifice the ordinary laws of justice to an idea of public utility, to a sort of reasons of state; an act of legislative authority which ought to be exercised only, which can be pardoned only in cases of the most urgent necessity.

Are we going to take the hands of the federal government completely off any effort to adjust the growing of national crops, and go right straight back to the old principle that every farmer is a lord of his own farm and can do anything he wants, raise anything, any old time, in any quantity, and sell any time he wants?

There are more agriculture bureaucrats than there are farmers in this country.

Africa needs roads. Roads bring know-how and fertilizer to farmers and ideas and business for commerce.

Excessive regulation is costing America as much as $2 trillion a year. And I will end it very, very quickly.

Rational as distinguished from vindictive regulation by public authority turns out to be an extremely delicate problem which not every government agency, particularly when in full cry against big business, can be trusted to solve.

Sanitary laws, pure food laws, and laws determining conditions of labor which individuals are powerless to determine for themselves are intimate parts of the very business of justice and legal efficiency.

With Government funding comes regulation.

No subject can better engage our attention than the promotion of trade and commerce at home and abroad. Domestic conditions are sure to be improved by larger exchanges with the nations of the world. We are already reaching out with good results. Our surplus products of agriculture and manufacture are finding a foreign market, and in the latter case to a degree which would not have been believed possible a quarter of a century ago. We have made wonderful progress in this direction, and have only just begun. Our manufactured products go to every nation of the world, and I hope the time may be not far distant when our ships, under the Stars and Stripes, will be on every sea where commerce is carried and the wants of mankind are to be supplied.

Too big to fail is too big.

The President cannot make clouds to rain and cannot make the corn to grow, he cannot make business good; although when these things occur, political parties do claim some credit for the good things that have happened in this way.

One of the many economic differences between developed and developing countries is that developed countries subsidize farmers while developing countries tax farmers.

Deregulation played virtually no role

There is, in my judgment, a great future before American manufacturing, commerce and trade, which will absorb millions of additional workers. When these workers are employed at good wages, as at present, they will buy farm products in a liberal way. The proportion of the American people engaged in industrial life doubtless will continue to increase, just as it has been doing.

Pure-food laws have become necessary to keep manufacturers from poisoning their customers; child labor laws have become necessary to keep employers from dwarfing the bodies, minds and souls of children; anti-trust laws have become necessary to keep overgrown corporations from strangling smaller competitors, and we are still in a death struggle with profiteers and gamblers in farm products.

Like other new and potentially powerful technologies, gene editing raises legitimate questions and understandable concerns about possible risks and misuse. How, then, should the technology be regulated? Rules developed decades ago for other forms of genetic engineering do not necessarily fit. Noting that gene-edited organisms are not transgenic, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has reasonably concluded that genetically edited plants are like plants with naturally occurring mutations and thus are not subject to special regulations and raise no special safety concerns.

Gene editing to make crops more abundant and resilient could be a lifesaver on a massive scale. The technology is already beginning to show results, attracting public and private investment, and for good reason. Scientists are developing crops with traits that enhance their growth, reduce the need for fertilizers and pesticides, boost their nutritional value, and make the plants hardier during droughts and hot spells. Already, many crops that have been improved by gene editing are being developed and tested in the field, including mushrooms with longer shelf lives, potatoes low in acrylamide (a potential carcinogen), and soybeans that produce healthier oil.

Improving the productivity of crops is fundamental to ending extreme poverty. Sixty percent of people in sub-Saharan Africa earn their living by working the land. But given the region’s generally low agricultural productivity—yields of basic cereals are five times higher in North America—Africa remains a net importer of food. This gap between supply and demand will only grow as the number of mouths to feed increases.

To reap the benefits of GMO technology, the U.S. must ensure that decisions about our food system are made based on science, not innuendo.