David F. Houston Quotes

The duty of the individual farmer, at this time, is to increase his production, particularly of food crops.

Agriculture was the first manufacturing industry in America and represents the best of all of us.

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

Let fields be devoted exclusively to the production of corn, oats, beans, peas, potatoes, and other food for man and beast; let corn be sown broadcast for fodder... and let all your efforts be directed to the prompt supply of these articles in the districts where our armies are operating.

I want Britain to lead the world in food and farming and to do that we need enough productive agricultural land.

Why should conservationists have a positive interest in... farming? There are lots of reasons, but the plainest is: Conservationists eat.

Modern agriculture has been accurately described as a way of turning oil into food. As the price of oil continues to rise, so will the price of food.

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.

Two out of every five people on Earth today owe their lives to the higher crop outputs that fertilizer has made possible.

Now listen, the one thing about agriculture is we've lost our manufacturing, we've lost a great deal of jobs overseas, lots of our industry. The last thing in the world we need to do is lose the ability to produce our food.

When it comes to agriculture, there's no such thing as a free market.

No civilization worthy of the name has every been founded on any agricultural basis other than that of cereals.

Farm subsidies are a matter of national food security

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.

Why, when India's agricultural products are among the cheapest in the world despite a low yield per hectare, are we not able to double the production and export the products abroad?

To affordably feed the next billion people, we must have higher-yielding crops with even greater nutritional value. America should be at the vanguard of the innovative advances that will make this happen.

We must continue as in millennia past, nourishing the future as we feed ourselves and, each year, plant only the very best of what we have collectively engineered.

Agriculture is the backbone of the livelihood security system of nearly 700 million people in the country and we need to build our food security on the foundation of home grown food.

There is talk about the need for a second Green Revolution. However, such a revolution is nowhere in sight.

In the last analysis civilization is based upon the food supply.

Agriculture specialists say our farm production is increasing and will go on increasing. Thank God.

If we get agriculture right in Africa, where most of the people now are working in that sector, not only would it help boost development but we will be secure in terms of food and nutrition and then be able to move on to other areas.

We are already producing enough food to feed the world. We already have technology in place that allows us to produce more than we can find a market for.

The Second Green Revolution, as the world's population grows to over 9 billion by 2050, is the new revolution we have to have to lift food production by another 75 percent.

We've gotten so far away from our food source. It's been hijacked from us. But if you get soil, plant something in it and water it, you can feed yourself. It's that simple.