Natural Farming Quotes

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

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

Unless people can become natural people, there can be neither natural farming nor natural food.

I grew up on an organic farm in England. And I was a vegetarian from an early age - not just for health, not for the environment - just because I didn't believe in killing animals to eat them.

I started natural farming after the war with just one small plot, but gradually I acquired additional acreage by taking over surrounding pieces of abandoned land and caring for them by hand.

Natural farming is just farming, nothing more. You don't have to be a spiritually oriented person to practice my methods.

Although natural farming - since it can teach people to cultivate a deep understanding of nature - may lead to spiritual insight, it's not strictly a spiritual practice.

The final principle of natural farming is NO PESTICIDES. Nature is in perfect balance when left alone.

If a farmer does abandon his or her "tame" fields completely to nature, mistakes and destruction are inevitable.

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.

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

I know that organic farms can be industrial and just as large and impersonal as conventional farms. Sometimes the free-range chickens aren't even allowed outside, and so they cluck-walk packed tight in a dim lit barn. But organic farms use fewer chemicals.

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.

Despite the fact that an Indonesian island chicken has probably had a much more natural life than one raised on a battery farm in England, people who wouldn't think twice about buying something oven-ready become much more upset about a chicken that they've been on a boat with, so there is probably buried in the Western psyche a deep taboo about eating anything you've been introduced to socially.

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.

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

The real path to natural farming requires that a person know what unaltered nature is, so that he or she can instinctively understand what needs to be done - and what must not be done - to work in harmony with its processes.

If you build up the soil with organic material, the plants will do just fine.

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

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.

I love judging food by its smell and feel and taste. The healthiest tomato isn't always the perfect one that's been covered in pesticides.

Beef should be organic and grass-fed; fish should be wild, not farm raised.

I've become a produce snob. I like to eat food that's in season.

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

Be sure to buy organic versions of the 'dirty dozen:' the fruits and vegetables that, when grown conventionally, are loaded with pesticides and chemicals: Grapes, apples, lettuce, bell peppers, carrots, nectarines, peaches, strawberries, pears, kale, and celery.