Agricultural Quotes - page 7
Monoculture is the single most powerful simplification of modern agriculture, the key move in reconfiguring nature as a machine, yet nothing else in agriculture is so poorly fitted to the way nature seems to work. Very simply, a vast field of identical plants will always be exquisitely vulnerable to insects, weeds, and disease-to all the vicissitudes of nature. Monoculture is at the root of virtually every problem that bedevils the modern farmer, and from which virtually every agricultural product is designed to deliver him.
Michael Pollan
About fifteen years ago, the Navajoes were subjected by the energy of Col. Vizcarra, who succeeded in keeping them in submission for some time; but since that officer's departure from New Mexico, no man has been found of sufficient capacity to inspire this daring tribe either with respect or fear; so that for the last ten years they have ravaged the country with impunity, murdering and destroying just as the humor happened to prompt them. When the spring of the year approaches, terms of peace are generally proposed to the government at Santa Fé, which the latter never fails to accept. This amicable arrangement enables the wily Indians to sow their crops at leisure, and to dispose of the property stolen from the Mexicans during their marauding incursions, to advantage; but the close of their agricultural labors is generally followed by a renewal of hostilities, and the game of rapine and destruction is played over again.
Josiah Gregg
Agricultural association, which in all ages has been deemed impossible, would produce results of unbounded magnificence the rigorous demonstrations, the mathematical calculations by which these results will be verified, will not, however, prevent the picture of the future harmony and happiness which they present from repelling minds habituated to the miseries and wretchedness of our present civilization.
Charles Fourier
The possibility of associating two or three hundred families in agricultural and manufacturing industry depends upon a system so entirely different from what now exists, that it will open to the reader a new social world. He must consequently, in the study which opens before him, follow the guide with confidence, bearing constantly in min the gigantic results which will flow from association. Such results are well worth the sacrifice of a few prejudices. Every sensible reader will be of this opinion, and will concur to follow the advice which I shall constantly give, namely, to neglect the form and style of presentation, and occupy himself solely with the substance of the theory, seeking to determine whether the process of association is really discovered or not.
Charles Fourier
[S]omehow or other another prospect of unlimited vestry confiscation, something like the three acres and a cow, seems to have affected the electorate of this country. ... The discussion that has taken place has pretty well convinced those who did not know it before, that small tenancies were not the source of unbounded wealth and happiness to those who had the privilege of enjoying them; and I have noticed that the offer has fallen perfectly flat on those agricultural labourers who know what they are doing. Their observation was, "Give me three or four acres? I cannot live upon that."
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
The reality is that many businesses, large and small, have long used undocumented workers to pad their bottom lines. Just consider the agricultural workforce. In California alone-where the $45 billion-a-year agricultural sector supplies more than half the produce consumed in the United States-between 40 and 50 percent of the workforce is made up of undocumented workers. No wonder California has been the site of some of the most important immigrant labor struggles, brought to the consciousness of many Americans in the 1960s and 1970s by the great United Farm Workers leader, Cesar Chavez. That struggle continues today.
Cesar Chavez
In the past, the Mongols and Tibetans were divided as lords and slaves, but the two chairmen [Ma Qi and Ma Bufang], insisting on the principle of equality of all nationalities in our country, corrected the absurdity and astutely reformed it, which is really a perceptive measure greatly significant for the frontiers. Better still, in September when cattle and sheep are plump, people cheerful, making the lake worship ritual is really a celebration, analagous to the Mid-Autumn Festival in agricultural society, celebrating the harvest. The nomadic nationalities can now all rejoice without division in land and region.
Ma Bufang
We seem to have quite a few problems: global climate change, peak oil, overpopulation, collapsing fisheries, desertification, wealth inequality, species extinctions, freshwater shortages, hapless governments, deforestation, disease epidemics, and agricultural failures top the list. ...our civilizations have been in similar situations before ...a long list of civilizations from the Maya to the Romans all collapsed. The precedent is set...
Steve Hallett
