M. S. Swaminathan Quotes

Let us not forget that the cultivation of the earth is the most important labor of man. When tillage begins, other arts will follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of civilization.

Concentrate our strength in agriculture and increase our potential.

The Green Revolution is neither.

In a world of growing food demand, Africa is home to two-thirds of the world's unexploited arable land.

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.

Industrial agriculture freed many people to pursue lives their parents and grandparents could never have. It made America modern.

All the people of the earth could be fed from the land within a circle of a thousand mile radius [of Kansas City.]

When I was agriculture minister, we drafted specific policies to tackle the agrarian crisis.

The land and agricultural industry is the backbone of Australia, and we need to foster the industry that provides our country with so much.

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

I was chairman of the steering committee for agriculture when we set up the target of 4% growth rate. I had written that if you want to achieve 4% growth rate in agriculture, you should have 8% growth in animal husbandry and fisheries and 8% in horticulture.

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.

During the past three years spectacular progress has been made in increasing wheat, rice, and maize production in several of the most populous developing countries of southern Asia, where widespread famine appeared inevitable only five years ago.

Improving Africa's farming sector would have multiple positive outcomes for African people.

Cereal production in the rain-fed areas still remains relatively unaffected by the impact of the green revolution, but significant change and progress are now becoming evident in several countries.

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.

We're trying to bring improved seeds to rural villages to increase yields. We're also trying to improve the roads to make it easier for people to get their produce to the market.

Even as the population doubled from three to six billion, we managed to race ahead with all kinds of technological and scientific events in agriculture - from using more fertilizers to mechanization to advanced plant breeding.

Our main source of economy is agriculture. What we should do is to use the oil money that we have today to re-fuel agriculture. And so agriculture will be the backbone of the economy of South Sudan.

Africa's agricultural sector has enormous scope for development, which would benefit both the continent's economy and its people.

When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of human civilization.

The Industrial Revolution did not spell the end of agriculture, or even the end of food production, in the United States. It just meant that a much smaller percentage of Americans had to work on farms to feed the population.

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.

No loss, in proportion to its amount, affects the interest of the nation so deeply, and vitally, and is so difficult to recover, as the loss of agricultural capital and produce

The cultivation of the earth, as the primary and most certain source of national supply ... has intrinsically a strong claim to pre-eminence over every other kind of industry.