Quotes on Farmers

The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn't still be a farmer.

In April, we cannot see sunflowers in France, so we might say the sunflowers do not exist. But the local farmers have already planted thousands of seeds, and when they look at the bare hills, they may be able to see the sunflowers already. The sunflowers are there. They lack only the conditions of sun, heat, rain and July. Just because we cannot see them does not mean that they do not exist.

The proper role of government, however, is that of partner with the farmer -- never his master. By every possible means we must develop and promote that partnership -- to the end that agriculture may continue to be a sound, enduring foundation for our economy and that farm living may be a profitable and satisfying experience.

Look at our farmers' markets today, bursting with heritage breeds and heirloom varieties, foods that were once abundant when we were an agricultural nation, but that we have lost touch with. Bringing all these back helps us connect to our roots, our communities and helps us feed America the proper way.

We were taught to be dependable, responsible, the top of our classes at school, the most organized and efficient babysitters in town, the very miniature models of our hardworking farmer/nurse mother, a pair of junior Swiss Army knives, born to multitask.

The most peaceful thing in the world is plowing a field. Chances are you’ll do your best thinking that way. And that’s why I’ve always thought and said, farmers are the smartest people in the world, they don’t go for high hats and they can spot a phony a mile off.

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

There are still thousands of people dying every year in Laos, mostly children and farmers, from unexploded anti-personnel ordnance that the U.S. simply saturated much of the land with, especially in the Plain of Jars. There actually is a British engineering team trying to remove some of these things, which are much worse than land mines.

The information revolution has changed people's perception of wealth. We originally said that land was wealth. Then we thought it was industrial production. Now we realize it's intellectual capital. The market is showing us that intellectual capital is far more important that money. This is a major change in the way the world works. the same thing that happened to the farmers during the Industrial Revolution is now happening to people in industry as we move into the information age.

Why can't it be awesome to work for a food company? Why can't we create an environment where people are trying to push each other to do great things, and we're not trying to steal from anybody - we're trying to be good to our farmers and run an honorable business, if there is such a thing anymore?

Without the wholehearted involvement of farmers, particularly of young as well as women farmers, it will be impossible to implement a Food Entitlements Act in an era of increasing price volatility in the international market.

Most farmers know that their children's future will probably not be in agriculture, but they have a hard time imagining a different life.

Give fools their gold, and knaves their power; let fortune's bubbles rise and fall; who sows a field, or trains a flower, or plants a tree, is more than all.

I was more independent than any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one, every moment.

We have neglected the truth that a good farmer is a craftsman of the highest order, a kind of artist.

There seems to be three ways for a nation to acquire wealth: the first is by war...this is robbery; the second by commerce, which is generally cheating; the third by agriculture, the only honest way.

Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, the emptiness of ages in his face, and on his back the burden of the world.

While the farmer holds the title to the land, actually, it belongs to all the people because civilization itself rests upon the soil.

The white, the Hispanic, the black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the Native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay and the disabled make up the American quilt.

Neither the entrepreneurs nor the farmers nor the capitalists determine what has to be produced. The consumers do that.

I have had the good fortune to see how my articles have directly benefited some farmers and helped build markets for their products in a way that preserves land from development. That makes me a hopeless optimist.