Wendell Berry Quotes

I have been busy working in order to make agriculture a priority sector not on a small scale, but into an agro-based industry.

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

If African farmers can use improved seeds and better practices to grow more crops and get them to market, then millions of families can earn themselves a better living and a better life.

My father was a progressive farmer, and was always ready to lay aside an old plough if he could replace it with one better constructed for its work. All through life, I have ever been ready to buy a better plough.

Establishment at public expense of rural depots for the most improved agricultural machinery, to be lent out to the agricultural population at a rent covering cost and management alone.

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.

Agricultural chemistry was not something that could be readily mastered by farmers, nor could the new machines be easily operated and maintained. Agricultural schools were needed to provide the necessary training. Then, if local gentry and rich households with large landholdings tried new methods—and if the new techniques were effective—the people will naturally follow them.

In the Department of Agriculture, the use of scientific experiments on a large scale and the spread of information derived from them for the improvement of general agriculture must go on.

… 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.

Looking ahead, the bright spot in Indian agriculture is the availability of a large untapped production reservoir.

Do we need farm program reform? Absolutely.

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.

I know of no pursuit in which more real and important services can be rendered to any country than by improving its agriculture, its breed of useful animals, and other branches of a husbandman's cares.

I want you to know that farmers are not going to be secondary thoughts to a Bush administration. They will be in the forethought of our thinking.

I haven't seen a tractor working all day. The country has gone sane and got back to horses. Farmers all look worse, but they feel better.

Borlaug would be one figure that I think fundamentally changed India, China, all of Southeast Asia, and gave them the time to be able to build on other things.

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

Lab to land - how to get what is done in the lab to the land, to the farmer.

In my opinion, if 100% of the people were farming it would be ideal. If each person were given one quarter-acre, that is 1 1/4 acres to a family of five, that would be more than enough land to support the family for the whole year. If natural farming were practiced, a farmer would also have plenty of time for leisure and social activities within the village community. I think this is the most direct path toward making this country a happy, pleasant land.

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.

If I had a wand and could put statues in different places, one of the statues would go to a man who just died, called Norman Borlaug, who came up with the Green Revolution.

Agriculture is the new golf

I don't know if I'm going to jail for three weeks, three months, or three years, but I think what I've done to motivate Hongkongers to care about this city, to try to love this country, is still valuable.

If we estimate dignity by immediate usefulness, agriculture is undoubtedly the first and noblest science.