152 Sustainable Agriculture Quotes

Following is our list of sustainable agriculture quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about organic agriculture.

Famous Sustainable Agriculture Quotes

A sustainable human community is designed in such a manner that its ways of life, technologies, and social institutions honor, support, and cooperate with nature's inherent ability to sustain life. — Fritjof Capra

You cannot, for instance, sustainably protect the environment if the majority of the people are still in primitive agriculture leading to the encroachment of forest reserves. — Yoweri Museveni

Sustainability is here to stay or we may not be — Niall FitzGerald

Bring diversity back to agriculture. That's what made it work in the first place. — David R. Brower

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. — Gro Harlem Brundtland

Switching to all organic food production is the single most critical (and most doable) action we can take right now to stop our climate crisis. — Maria Rodale

Sustainability is treating ourselves and our environment as if we are to live on this earth forever. — Arron Wood

Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness. — Thomas Jefferson

The future of our nation depends on our ability to produce food and fiber to sustain the world. — Phil Bredesen

Sustainability is a political choice, not a technical one. It's not a question of whether we can be sustainable, but whether we choose to be — Gary Lawrence

Permaculture creates a cultivated ecology, which is designed to produce more human and animal food than is generally found in nature. — Bill Mollison

Sustainability takes forever. And that's the point. — William McDonough

Everything else can wait, agriculture can’t. — Norman Borlaug

We must plant the sea and herd its animals using the sea as farmers instead of hunters. That is what civilization is all about - farming replacing hunting. — Jacques Yves Cousteau

We cannot choose between [economic] growth and sustainability - we must have both — Paul Polman

Short Sustainable Agriculture Quotes

• People in Slow Food understand that food is an environmental issue. — Michael Pollan
• Without environmental sustainability, economic stability and social cohesion cannot be achieved — Phil Harding
• Slow Food unites the pleasure of food with responsibility, sustainability and harmony with nature. — Carlo Petrini
• True development must be in harmony with the needs of people and the rhythms of the natural world. — Sulak Sivaraksa
• To save the seas, we can eat sustainably and be conscious of the seafood we eat. — Carl Safina

Organic Farming Quotes

An organic farmer is the best peacemaker today, because there is more violence, more death, more destruction, more wars, through a violent industrial agricultural system. And to shift away from that into an agriculture of peace is what organic farming is doing. — Vandana Shiva

I quit because I can’t stand seeing kids come to class hungry and needing shoes. I thought I could do more by organizing farm workers than by trying to teach their hungry children. — Dolores Huerta

There are 6.6 billion people on the planet today. With organic farming we could only feed four billion of them. Which two billion would volunteer to die? — Norman Borlaug

Organic farming appealed to me because it involved searching for and discovering nature's pathways, as opposed to the formulaic approach of chemical farming. The appeal of organic farming is boundless; this mountain has no top, this river has no end. — Eliot Coleman

Far from being a “luxury for the rich,” organic farming may turn out to be a necessity not just for the poor, but for everyone. — Raj Patel

We consume the carcasses of creatures of like appetites, passions and organs with our own, and fill the slaughterhouses daily with screams of pain and fear. — Robert Louis Stevenson

Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left. That is to say, you cannot love game and hate predators; you cannot conserve the waters and waste the ranges; you cannot build the forest and mine the farm. The land is one organism. — Aldo Leopold

To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves. — Mahatma Gandhi

Producing quality compost is the most important job on the organic farm. A lot of the problems I see on farms I visit could be solved by making better compost. — Eliot Coleman

With wrong farming methods, we turn fertile land into desert. Unless we go back to organic farming and save the soil, there is no future. — Jaggi Vasudev

Organic Agriculture Quotes

Organic farming has been shown to provide major benefits for wildlife and the wider environment. The best that can be said about genetically engineered crops is that they will now be monitored to see how much damage they cause. — Prince Charles

Real climate solutions are ones that steer these interventions to systematically disperse and devolve power and control to the community level, whether through community-controlled renewable energy, local organic agriculture or transit systems genuinely accountable to their users. — Naomi Klein

Agricultural practice served Darwin as the material basis for the elaboration of his theory of Evolution, which explained the natural causation of the adaptation we see in the structure of the organic world. That was a great advance in the knowledge of living nature. — Trofim Lysenko

I was an organizer in the Food, Agricultural and Tobacco Workers Union down in North Carolina. — Al Lewis

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

What is fetus farming? Simply put, it is the creation and development of a human fetus for the purposes of later killing it for research or for harvesting its organs. — Nathan Deal

Organic agriculture is more about fairness and respect than it is about parts-per-billion of pesticide residues — Jim Hightower

Many organic practices simply make sense, regardless of what overall agricultural system is used. Far from being a quaint throwback to an earlier time, organic agriculture is proving to be a serious contender in modern farming and a more environmentally sustainable system over the long term. — David Suzuki

We are aware that many national farm organizations are putting forth various plans to provide both short- and long-term relief to our nation's agricultural producers. While we believe long-term solutions are essential, the current situation demands a more immediate response. — Mel Carnahan

We have an ideal location for a couple of organic wineries on the island. But the reintroduction of commercial agriculture to Lanai is 100% dependent upon increasing the available water on the island. So we're going to use solar energy to convert seawater to fresh water. — Larry Ellison

Sustainable Living Quotes

Love is our only reason for living and the only purpose of life. We live for the sake of love, and we live seeking love... it is not surprising that we keep looking for love. All of us are nothing but vibrations of love. We are sustained by love, and in the end we merge back into love. — Swami Muktananda

Mindfulness means moment-to-moment, non-judgmental awareness. It is cultivated by refining our capacity to pay attention, intentionally, in the present moment, and then sustaining that attention over time as best we can. In the process, we become more in touch with our life as it is unfolding. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

We labour at our daily work more ardently and thoughtlessly than is necessary to sustain our life because it is even more necessary not to have leisure to stop and think. Haste is universal because everyone is in flight from himself. — Friedrich Nietzsche

We live not, in reality, on the summit of a solid earth but at the bottom of an ocean of air — Thales

The Ego, however, is not who you really are. The ego is your self-image; it is your social mask; it is the role you are playing. Your social mask thrives on approval. It wants control, and it is sustained by power, because it lives in fear. — Deepak Chopra

To annihilate indigenous populations eventually paves the way to our own annihilation. They are the only people who practice sustainable living. We think they are relics of the past, but they may be the gatekeepers to our future. — Arundhati Roy

To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top. — Robert M. Pirsig

We are machines built by DNA whose purpose is to make more copies of the same DNA. ... This is exactly what we are for. We are machines for propagating DNA, and the propagation of DNA is a self-sustaining process. It is every living object's sole reason for living. — Richard Dawkins

Prayer is the most powerful form of energy one can generate....It supplies us with a flow of sustaining power in our daily lives. — Alexis Carrel

Change is constant and touches every area of our lives, so it’s imperative to be able to adapt. — Vladimer Botsvadze

Agriculture Quotes

Of course people don't want war. Why should a poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best thing he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? — Hermann Goring

The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings. — Masanobu Fukuoka

I had a good mind to discontinue permanently the supply of grain to the city, reliance on which had discouraged Italian agriculture, but refrained because some politician would be bound one day to revive the dole as a means of ingratiating himself with the people. — Augustus

I was talking about no nukes, the farm crisis. People said that wasn't stuff that a state auditor was supposed to be talking about. Maybe they were right. — Paul Wellstone

The green revolution has an entirely different meaning to most people in the affluent nations of the privileged world than to those in the developing nations of the forgotten world. — Norman Borlaug

We Communists have got to string along with the capitalists for a while. We need their agriculture and their technology. But we are going to continue massive military programs. . . (soon) we will be in a position to return to a much more aggressive foreign policy designed to gain the upper-hand. — Leonid Brezhnev

In Old Europe and Ancient Crete, women were respected for their roles in the discovery of agriculture and for inventing the arts of weaving and pottery making. — Carol P. Christ

Just as the science and art of agriculture depend upon chemistry and botany, so the art of education depends upon physiology and psychology. — Edward Thorndike

I have to study politics and war so that my sons can study mathematics, commerce and agriculture, so their sons can study poetry, painting and music. — John Quincy Adams

All my economic ideas as developed over twenty-five years can be summed up in the words: agricultural-industrial federation. All my political ideas boil down to a similar formula: political federation or decentralization. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Sustainable Development Quotes

Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps we should control the population to ensure the survival of our environment — David Attenborough

You can make a lot of speeches, but the real thing is when you dig a hole, plant a tree, give it water, and make it survive. That's what makes the difference — Wangari Maathai

The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery, not over nature but of ourselves. — Rachel Carson

A global human society, characterised by islands of wealth, surrounded by a sea of poverty, is unsustainable — Thabo Mbeki

Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance. — Kofi Annan

We do not accept that human society should be constructed on the basis of a savage principle of the survival of the fittest — Thabo Mbeki

Sustainable development is the pathway to the future we want for all. It offers a framework to generate economic growth, achieve social justice, exercise environmental stewardship and strengthen governance. — Ban Ki-moon

We will become a global advocate for rainforest preservation and marine restoration. We will rethink development policies that promised economic growth while ignoring ecological sustainability, and ended up delivering neither. — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Working together, all of us can embark on a path of green, low-carbon and sustainable development. — Xi Jinping

We need to gain an accurate understanding of what sustainable development means, put the people first, and strike a balance between economic growth, ensuring people’s well-being, and energy conservation and emissions reduction. — Xi Jinping

Sustainability Quotes

God, send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. And sever any tie in my heart except the tie that binds my heart to Yours. — David Livingstone

Revolution is an inalienable right of mankind. Freedom is an imperishable birth right of all. Labor is the real sustainer of society, the sovereignty of the ultimate destiny of the workers. — Bhagat Singh

[O]ne of the most vital ways we sustain ourselves is by building communities of resistance, places where we know we are not alone. — Bell Hooks

Success in science and scientific work come not through the provision of unlimited or big resources, but in the wise and careful selection of problems and objectives. Above all, what is required is hard sustained work and dedication. — Lal Bahadur Shastri

I am the fiery life of the essence of God; I am the flame above the beauty in the fields; I shine in the waters; I burn in the sun, the moon, and the stars. And with the airy wind, I quicken all things vitally by an unseen, all-sustaining life. — Hildegard of Bingen

A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government. — Alexander Hamilton

No society can long sustain itself unless its members have learned the sensitivities, motivations and skills involved in assisting and caring for other human beings. — Urie Bronfenbrenner

Productivity and efficiency can be achieved only step by step with sustained hard work, relentless attention to details and insistence on the highest standards of quality and performance. — J. R. D. Tata

The earth which sustains humanity must not be injured. It must not be destroyed! — Hildegard of Bingen

We share this planet, our home, with millions of species. Justice and sustainability both demand that we do not use more resources than we need. — Vandana Shiva

Environmental Sustainability Quotes

Quite frankly, there is no answer to climate change without substantially, dramatically, increasing the amount of renewable energy in the global energy system. — Christiana Figueres

When future generations judge those who came before them on environmental issues, they may conclude "they didn't know": let us not go down in history as the generations who knew, but didn't care — Mikhail Gorbachev

The scarcest resource is not oil, metals, clean air, capital, labour, or technology. It is our willingness to listen to each other and learn from each other and to seek the truth rather than seek to be right — Donella Meadows

Global markets must be balanced by global values such as respect for human rights and international law, democracy, security and sustainable economic and environmental development. — Anna Lindh

This planet might be able to support perhaps as many as half a billion people who could live a sustainable life in relative comfort. Human populations must be greatly diminished, and as quickly as possible to limit further environmental damage. — Eric Pianka

Listen up, you couch potatoes: each recycled beer can saves enough electricity to run a television for three hours. — Denis Hayes

Where the quality of life goes down for the environment, the quality of life goes down for humans. — George Holland

The future belongs to those who understand that doing more with less is compassionate, prosperous, and enduring, and thus more intelligent, even competitive. — Paul Hawken

No institutions in modern society are better equipped to catalyze the necessary transition to a sustainable world than colleges and universities. They have access to the leaders of tomorrow and the leaders of today. What they do matters to the wider public. — David W. Orr

Our presence on this planet does not seem to be sustainable. Our technical civilization makes up particularly vulnerable. There is talk all over the scientific community about climate change. Many of them [scientists] agree, the end of human life on earth is assured. — Werner Herzog

Animal Agriculture Quotes

It is not larger, cleaner cages that justice demands...but empty cages; not traditional animal agriculture but a complete end to all commerce in the flesh of dead animals; not more humane hunting and trapping, but the total eradication of these barbarous practices. — Tom Regan

Animal agriculture takes up an incredible 70% of all agricultural land, and a whopping 30% of the land surface of the planet. As a result, farmed animals are probably the biggest cause of slashing and burning the world's forests. — Kathy Freston

We would be foolish and silly not to unite with people in the public health sector, the environmental community, [and] unions, to try to challenge corporate agriculture. — Wayne Pacelle

I believe we can create a truly humane, sustainable, and health food production system without killing any animals. I imagine a revolution in veganic agriculture in which small farmers grow a variety of vegetables, fruits, grains, and legumes, all fertilized with vegetable sources. — Gene Baur

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. — George Washington

It is simply that in all life on earth as in all good agriculture there are no short-cuts that by-pass Nature and the nature of man himself and animals, trees, rocks and streams. Every attempt at a formula, a short-cut, a panacea, always ends in negation and destruction. — Louis Bromfield

Eventually, humans invented agriculture, which could be understood as a way of turning the natural world into a tool for our use. There's evidence that we have been domesticating crops and animals for at least 15,000 years, adapting ecosystems to our preferred way of life. — Annalee Newitz

The seven things that make up the rainbow of India's development are India's strong and deep rooted family system, Agriculture-Animal development, India's Matru Shakti (women power), Natural Resources (Jal, Jameen, Jungle), Youth power, Vibrant Democracy and Knowledge. — Narendra Modi

The lifeblood of Mercy For Animals is our undercover investigations of animal agriculture. — Nathan Runkle

Animal agriculture makes a 40% greater contribution to global warming than all transportation in the world combined; it is the number one cause of climate change. — Jonathan Safran Foer

Organic Food Quotes

If the Americans like to eat GMO products, let them eat it then. We don't need to do that; we have enough space and opportunities to produce organic food. — Dmitry Medvedev

If you have a busy natural foods store in your community, give their bulk cornmeal a try: high turnover means the product will most likely be fresh. And if the cornmeal is organic, all the better. — Jeremy Jackson

I dislike organized games, swimming pools, fashionable resorts, night clubs, music in restaurants, and political manifestoes; I enjoy driving from coast to coast, good food and drink, a few friends, dogs, the theatre, long walks, music and free conversation. — James Hilton

Cleaning is my favorite way to relax. I clear things out and get rid of the stuff I don't need. When the food pantry and the refrigerator are organized, I feel less stressed. — Jennifer Morrison

Those who begin to exercise regularly and replace white flour, sugar and devitalized foods with live, organic natural foods begin to feel better immediately. Exercise is king, nutrition is queen -- put them together and you've got a kingdom. — Jack LaLanne

As for butter versus margarine, I trust cows more than chemists. — Joan Dye Gussow

Most people don't realize this, but you can eat organic, all natural, gluten-free food without telling everyone around you. — Chris Rock

A typical guy who buys organic food doesn't really buy it in order to be healthy; he buys it to regain a kind of solidarity as the one who really cares about nature. He buys a certain ideological stance. — Slavoj Žižek

To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. — Anthony Bourdain

The act of putting into your mouth what the earth has grown is perhaps your most direct interaction with the earth. — Frances Moore Lappé

Eat Organic Quotes

Gradually, by selective breeding, the congenital differences between rulers and ruled will increase until they become almost different species. A revolt of the plebs would become as unthinkable as an organized insurrection of sheep against the practice of eating mutton. — Bertrand Russell

One hasn't become a writer until one has distilled writing into a habit, and that habit has been forced into an obsession. Writing has to be an obsession. It has to be something as organic, physiological and psychological as speaking or sleeping or eating. — Niyi Osundare

From the moment an organizer enters a community, he lives, dreams, eats, breathes, sleeps only one thing, and that is to build the mass power base of what he calls the army. — Saul Alinsky

I eat nothing that's processed or refined - no high-fructose corn syrup, no sugar, no trans-fats. I eat a lot of fish and monounsaturated fats from olives, olive oil and nuts. A lot of organic, fresh fruits and vegetables. No bread. No gluten. No wheat. No rice. — Dean Karnazes

I've long believed that good food, good eating, is all about risk. Whether we're talking about unpasteurized Stilton, raw oysters or working for organized crime 'associates,' food, for me, has always been an adventure — Anthony Bourdain

High-tech tomatoes. Mysterious milk. Supersquash. Are we supposed to eat this stuff? Or is it going to eat us? — Anita Manning

It is difficult to get organic food at most restaurants, so when possible, eat at home. When not, do your best. — Suzanne Somers

I believe the best way to activate genius within the immune system is by ingesting certain superherbs and superfoods, taking probiotics and cultured foods, minimizing toxic food exposure by eating pure organic raw-living foods, and making appropriate healthy lifestyle improvements. — David Wolfe

Don't eat processed food, refined food but rather organic food from the earth - nothing with genetically - modified ingredients. — Deepak Chopra

If you have ever seen the movie Night of the Living Dead, you have a rough idea how modern corporations and organizations operate, with projects and proposals that everybody thought were killed constantly rising from their graves to stagger back into meetings and eat the brains of the living. — Dave Barry

People Writing About Sustainable Agriculture

Name	Quotes	Likes
Fritjof Capra quotes on shiva	50	776
Yoweri Museveni quotes on war, education and world	37	961
David R. Brower quotes on leadership, religion and david r brower	75	608
Gro Harlem Brundtland quotes on education, culture and leadership	51	558
Maria Rodale quotes on life, love and education	20	90
Thomas Jefferson quotes on government, constitution and education	1788	19141

More Sustainable Agriculture Quotes

In Africa, there were few plants willing to be domesticated, and even fewer animals. Much of the land consists of jungle, swamp, desert, or steep-sided plateau, none of which lend themselves to the growing of wheat or rice, or sustaining herds of sheep. Africa's rhinos, gazelles, and giraffes stubbornly refused to be beasts of burden. — Tim Marshall

Humans merely share the Earth. We can only protect the land, not own it. — Chief Seattle

Climate and digitalisation – will bring changes for all, but let there be no doubt: Farming will remain a valued part of our culture and our future. — Ursula von der Leyen

I want Britain to lead the world in food and farming and to do that we need enough productive agricultural land. — Liz Truss

I’m very concerned that a lot of our land is being taken up with solar farms. — Liz Truss

Agricultural sustainability doesn't depend on agritechnology. To believe it does is to put the emphasis on the wrong bit of 'agriculture.' What sustainability depends on isn't agri- so much as culture. — Raj Patel

If we don't get sustainability right in agriculture first, it won't happen anywhere. — Wes Jackson

Everything we think about regarding sustainability - from energy to agriculture to manufacturing to population - has a water footprint. Almost all of the water on Earth is salt water, and the remaining freshwater supplies are split between agricultural use and human use - as well as maintaining the existing natural environment. — Jamais Cascio

As we search for a less extractive and polluting economic order, so that we may fit agriculture into the economy of a sustainable culture, community becomes the locus and metaphor for both agriculture and culture. — Wes Jackson

If you understand it from an ecological or sustainability perspective, agriculture is the primary way we meet most of our needs, and it's the greatest form of human intervention on our environment. It has intimately shaped our culture as powerfully as industrial modernity, but for ten thousand years rather than two hundred. — David Holmgren

There won't be some overnight miracle cure. But the measures I take will be sustainable. Our goal is to cease food imports within four years. This will create a minimum of 2 million jobs in agriculture. — Ashraf Ghani

The sanctuary would be the epicenter for the foundation. We'll have think tanks there. It's going to be a really, really amazing place. As an educational home base, we will also focus on the development of sustainable agriculture initiative. It's a huge project but one I am exceptionally passionate about. — Ian Somerhalder

It is only with local [agriculture] that we can manage the complexity and care that sustainability requires. — Vandana Shiva

A sustainable agriculture is one which depletes neither the people nor the land. — Wendell Berry

To make agriculture sustainable, the grower has got to be able to make a profit. — Sam Farr

That we don't design agriculture to be sustainable is totally eerie. We design it to be a disaster, and of course, we get a disaster. — Bill Mollison

I farm taro. I have eight varieties of taro, which is a staple of the Hawaiian people from about 2,000 years ago, and sweet potatoes, and it's a sustainable living, agriculture, off the grid. — Jason Scott

In Japan, the average age of agricultural workers is 65.8. When the aging of its population is accelerating so rapidly, it will be very difficult to sustain the sector whether we liberalize trade or not. — Naoto Kan

Surely we have the wit and will to develop economically without despoiling the very environment we depend upon — Tony Blair

Since nature has the most sustainable ecosystem and since ultimately agriculture comes out of nature, our standard for a sustainable world should be nature's own ecosystem. — Wes Jackson

When we conduct agriculture, we are, therefore, altering the ecological arrangement that was responsible for our genesis as a species. I think that this is the reason that this alienation has allowed us to see and regard land mostly as a resource. So we have created a problem for ourselves from the word "go," for land is not a resource any more than humans are resources. — Wes Jackson

The people who benefit from this state of affairs have been at pains to convince us that the agricultural practices and policies that have almost annihilated the farming population have greatly benefited the population of food consumers. But more and more consumers are now becoming aware that our supposed abundance of cheap and healthful food is to a considerable extent illusory. — Wendell Berry

Agriculture has become essential to life; the forest, the lake, and the ocean cannot sustain the increasing family of man; population declines with a declining cultivation, and nations have ceased to be with the extinction of their agriculture. — Elias Hasket Derby

When it comes to taking genes from viruses and bacteria and putting them into plants, people say 'Yuck! Why would scientists do that?' Because sometimes it is the safest, cheapest and most effective technology to advance sustainable agriculture and enhance food security. — Pamela Ronald

A Sustainable Agriculture does not deplete soils or people. — Wendell Berry

To the greatest extent possible, I try to make choices that involve the least amount of cruelty and environmental damage. I'm interested in sustainable agriculture, environmental issues, human rights, and my interconnectedness in the web of life. It is a great pleasure for me to find products and practices that have a positive effect on living beings and the environment, rather than a negative one. — Vesanto Melina

Permaculture is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way. Without permanent agriculture there is no possibility of a stable social order. — Bill Mollison

In Conclusion

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