Steve Ells Quotes

I'm so crazy now about 'organic' and 'fresh' and stuff that's 'free range.'

I want to know what my food has been eating.

I had such a hard time finding great organic and non-toxic items for my daughter.

Every major food company now has an organic division. There's more capital going into organic agriculture than ever before.

New Zealand has incredible global recognition for grass-fed livestock.

If we pursue organic farming as our healthy food style, we can bring down cost of treatment to a great extent.

Advertising says to people, 'Here's what we've got. Here's what it will do for you. Here's how to get it.'

We wouldn't think of going to our doctor and saying 'Treat me the way doctors treated people in the 19th Century,' and yet that's what we're demanding in food production.

Adopting big-business practices is one thing, and adopting agribusiness practices that would dilute the meaning of 'organic' is another. On the whole, I think we're doing a pretty good job of preserving the integrity of organic foods.

Of course, I prefer organic farming to chemical-dependent farming, but sometimes absolutist organic prescriptions go too far. I don't even rule out the possibility of genetic modification generating some benign ideas, as long as we can keep them away from monopolists such as Monsanto.

Food and the way we grow it and produce it are a major cause of environmental degradation.

I'm really into natural and organic products.

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.

If we as a society are willing to have a preference for organic food, the farmer can pass on the savings.

I'm a farmer now, and it's fantastic. My goal is to be totally self-sufficient and grow everything that I eat. There's something about earning your dinner that's cool.

'Organic' doesn't mean what people think it means.

We had a small farm growing up. It was my grandfather's farm, and we didn't torture the animals, and we didn't feed them stuff we wouldn't eat.

Almost all the knowledge required to produce more food than eroding soil is available today - we just need to use that knowledge within a holistic paradigm - managing agriculture holistically, forming the policies that undergird it holistically.

My real emphasis is on the farmers who are taking care of the land, the farmers who are really thinking about our nourishment.

I don't want food that comes from animals that are caged up and fed antibiotics. I am really suspicious of that kind of production of meat and poultry.

The agricultural potential of Africa is unlimited.

To eat chicken that was raised with antibiotics is safe, right? But long-term, relying on antibiotics as part of our livestock production is probably not the right thing to do. To not serve chicken means that there's not an economic engine that's making it possible to build up a supply of antibiotic-free meat.

The thing about organic farming is that the produce will not look the same. Your tomato will not resemble the rich red one from the textbook, and that's the beauty of it.

Large-scale deforestation can be prevented while increasing food production through better, smarter agriculture.

I myself did not officially become organic until 1997, although I was always hopeless at using chemicals.