Mechanization In Agriculture Quotes

Make criticism in good time; don't get into the habit of criticizing only after the event. ~ Mao Tse-tung

If the U.S. became the undisputed superpower that it is today, it was primarily because of its technology, whether it is in transportation, agriculture, high-tech industry, medicine, etc. ~ N. R. Narayana Murthy

rule. The first, widely known, was the Great Leap Forward. This was a set of national policies implemented in the 1950s that included collectivization of agriculture, a disaster everywhere it has been tried, but nowhere as much as China. The resulting famine killed between 20 and 40 million people in three years, the deadliest in human history. ~ Clay Shirky

Between 6 and 8 percent of pigs die before they are trucked from the factory farm to slaughter. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, about 123 million pigs were slaughtered in 2006. That means 7 to 10 million died on their own before we could kill them. ~ Steven M. Wise

Beaumont-Hamel sits within a thousand acres of French agriculture. The trenches are under this blanket of grass. In the 1920s, a park was established here and trees from Newfoundland imported to encircle the battlefield so you get the feeling of being within a copse of woods. ~ Michael Winter

Like its agriculture, Africa's markets are highly under-capitalized and inefficient. We know from our work around the continent that transaction costs of reaching the market, and the risks of transacting in rural, agriculture markets, are extremely high. In fact, only one third of agricultural output produced in Africa even reaches the market. ~ Eleni Zaude Gabre-Madhin

The idea of hunting and gathering as the best way for life has become quite popular recently, much more populare in some circles than the idea of simple farming as the best way of life. Many of the new primitives regard the beginnings of agriculture as one of humanity's major steps in the wrong direction. Most of the people who are drawn to such ideas do their actual hunting and gathering in grocery stores, but the *feeling* is there; it takes the form of a religion ... expressed by particpating in American Indian rituals - or primitive-style rituals that are created anew. ~ Walter Truett Anderson

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

The levels of poverty in 1933's rural America were unimaginable to us now. The 1933 Farm Bill, which introduced unprecedented government control over agriculture, was a reaction to the specific problems facing producers at that time. ~ Debbie Stabenow

Youngsters inspired by Maoism have taken the gun and are spilling blood on streets, but our land needs the colour of progress not the colour of blood. Maoists must not have the gun in their hands, instead they must have agriculture tools and pens so that they can serve others. Raasta kalam, hal aur pasine ka hai, khoon ka nahi. ~ Narendra Modi

The obvious question is, what are the "conditions to which presumably we are genetically adapted"? As it turns out, what Donaldson assumed in 1919 is still the conventional wisdom today: our genes were effectively shaped by the two and a half million years during which our ancestors lived as hunters and gatherers prior to the introduction of agriculture twelve thousand years ago. This is a period of time known as the Paleolithic era or, less technically, as the Stone Age, because it begins with the development of the first stone tools. It constitutes more than 99.5 percent of human history - more than a hundred thousand generations of humanity living as hunter-gatherers, compared with the six hundred succeeding generations of farmers or the ten generations that have lived in the industrial age.
It's not controversial to say that the agricultural period - the last .5 percent of the history of our species - has had little significant effect on our genetic makeup. What is significant is what we ate during the two and a half million years that preceded agriculture - the Paleolithic era. The question can never be answered definitively, because this era, after all, preceded human record-keeping. The best we can do is what nutritional anthropologists began doing in the mid-1980s - use modern-day hunter-gatherer societies as surrogates for our Stone Age ancestors. ~ Gary Taubes

The cultivation of a single staple grain was, in itself, an important step in legibility and hence, appropriation. Monoculture fosters uniformity at many different levels. . .A society shaped powerfully by monoculture was easier to monitor, assess, and tax than one shaped by agricultural diversity. ~ James C. Scott

The heart of the issue is not simply that a group that gets a large portion of its budget from the Walton family fortune is unlikely to be highly critical of Walmart. The 1990s was the key decade when the contours of the climate battle were being drawn - when a collective strategy for rising to the challenge was developed and when the first wave of supposed solutions was presented to the public.

It was also the period when Big Green became most enthusiastically pro-corporate, most committed to a low-friction model of social change in which everything had to be 'win- win.' And in the same period many of the corporate partners of groups like the EDF and the Nature Conservancy - Walmart, FedEx, GM - were pushing hard for the global deregulatory framework that has done so much to send emissions soaring.

This alignment of economic interests - combined with the ever powerful desire to be seen as 'serious' in circles where seriousness is equated with toeing the pro-market line - fundamentally shaped how these green groups conceived of the climate challenge from the start. Global warming was not defined as a crisis being fueled by overconsumption, or by high emissions industrial agriculture, or by car culture, or by a trade system that insists that vast geographical distances do not matter - root causes that would have demanded changes in how we live, work, eat, and shop. Instead, climate change was presented as a narrow technical problem with no end of profita ~ Naomi Klein

re: the US agriculture industry: " This puts us in the odd position of consuming fossil fuels --geologically one of the rarest and most useful resources ever discovered-- to provide a substitute for dirt --the cheapest and most widely available agricultural input imaginable. ~ David R. Montgomery

The current economic crisis ... has numerous causes and sends a powerful message about the need for a profound revision of the model of global economic development. It's an acute symptom that is added to other more grave and already well-known ones, such as the continued imbalance between wealth and poverty, the scandal of hunger, the ecological emergency and the problem of unemployment, which has now become general. In this context a strategic re-launching of agriculture appears decisive. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Agriculture was the first manufacturing industry in America and represents the best of all of us. ~ Zack Wamp

The first steps in Agriculture, Astronomy, Zoology, (those first steps which the farmer, the hunter, and the sailor take,) teach that nature's dice are always loaded; that in her heaps and rubbish are concealed sure and useful results. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

...The [Renaissance] interest in education was also influenced by a changing economy. For different reasons in different countries, agriculture was becoming less lucrative, and many farmers decided to move to the cities to take up new occupations. However, to succeed in a trade they needed to know how to read and perform bookkeeping tasks ... Those who remained on the farm found life much the same as in the Middle Ages. In fact, in some agricultural regions the Renaissance economy devastated farmers. For example, as the wool industry grew in importance, more landowners in England decided to raise sheep instead of growing crops. They therefore needed fewer farmworkers, and many peasants lost their livelihoods. ~ Patricia D. Netzley

Because he let the entire world press upon him. For instance? Well, for instance, what it means to be a man. In a city. In a century. In transition. In a mass. Transformed by science. Under organized power. Subject to tremendous controls. In a condition caused by mechanization. After the late failure of radical hopes. In a society that was no community and devalued the person.Owing to the multiplied power of numbers which made the self negligible. Which spent military billions against foreign enemies but would not pay for order at home. Which permitted savagery and barbarism in its own great cities. At the same time, the pressure of human millions who have discovered what concerted efforts and thoughts can do. ~ Saul Bellow

The government is now in a position to do what Franklin D. Roosevelt did during the Great Depression of the 1930s - use a crisis of the times to create new institutions that will last for generations. To this day, we are still subsidizing millionaires in agriculture because farmers were having a tough time in the 1930s. ~ Thomas Sowell

During the Qin Dynasty, all books not relating to practical concerns
such as agriculture or construction were ordered burned by the
emperor to guard against "dangerous thought." Whether accounts of
zombie attacks perished in the flames will never be known. This
obscure section of a medical manuscript, preserved in the wall of an
executed Chinese scholar, might be proof of such attacks. ~ Max Brooks

The fatal hour of this ancient game is approaching. In its modern form this game will soon die a drawing death - the inevitable victory of certainty and mechanization will leave its stamp on the fate of chess. ~ Emanuel Lasker

Cyclists thus found their hobby not as pleasant as it could be, to say the least, and the League of American Wheelmen committed to doing something about it. A year after Fisher opened his store, the league launched a magazine, Good Roads, that became an influential mouthpiece for road improvement. Its articles were widely reprinted, which attracted members who didn't even own bikes; at the group's peak, Fisher and more than 102,000 others were on the rolls, and the Good Roads Movement was too big for politicians to ignore. Yes, the demand for roads was pedal-powered, and a national cause even before the first practical American car rolled out of a Chicopee, Massachusetts, shop in 1893. A few months ahead of the Duryea Motor Wagon's debut, Congress authorized the secretary of agriculture to "make inquiry regarding public roads" and to investigate how they might be improved. ~ Earl Swift

In the days when the nation depended on agriculture for its wealth it made the Lord Chancellor sit on a woolsack to remind him where the wealth came from. I would like to suggest we remove that now and make him sit on a crate of machine tools. ~ Prince Philip

The water trading mechanism where there are transparent trades of water allocations is one that is good for us to learn from because it does allow for the marketplace to procure water for the highest and most efficient uses with the highest value in agriculture. And that might be a good model for us. ~ Marc Levine

I was no more interested in agriculture than I was in learning how to milk cats, but I persisted because I couldn't resist bothering him while he was reading. "And what have you learned so far?" "That certain young women are relentless pests," he responded blandly, his eyes still fixed on the book. "Ridiculous," I chided. "That has nothing to do with agriculture. ~ Sarah E. Boucher

Much of the vaunted material wealth that shields us from disease and famine was accumulated at the expense of laboratory monkeys, dairy cows and conveyor-belt chickens. Over the last two centuries tens of billions of them have been subjected to a regime of industrial exploitation whose cruelty has no precedent in the annals of planet Earth. If we accept a mere tenth of what animal-rights activists are claiming, then modern industrial agriculture might well be the greatest crime in history. When evaluating global happiness, it is wrong to count the happiness only of the upper classes, of Europeans or of men. Perhaps it is also wrong to consider only the happiness of humans. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, [...] came to teach [the ancient inhabitants of Mexico] the benefits of settled agriculture and the skills necessary to build temples. Although this deity is frequently depicted as a serpent, he is more often shown in human form--the serpent being his symbol and his alter ego--and is usually described as "a tall bearded white man" ... "a mysterious person ... a white man with a strong formation of body, broad forehead, large eyes and a flowing beard." Indeed, [...] the attributes and life history of Quetzalcoatl are so human that it is not improbable that he may have been an actual historical character ... the memory of whose benefactions lingered after his death, and whose personality was eventually deified. The same could very well be said of Oannes--and just like Oannes at the head of the Apkallu (likewise depicted as prominently bearded) it seems that Quetzalcoatl traveled with his own brotherhood of sages and magicians. We learn that they arrived in Mexico "from across the sea in a boat that moved by itself without paddles," and that Quetzalcoatl was regarded as having been "the founder of cities, the framer of laws and the teacher of the calendar. ~ Graham Hancock

I grew up in a city. My parents would think there was something wrong with America if they knew I was secretary of agriculture. ~ Tom Vilsack

The farmers can be thankful. Didn't the Farm Board decide in Washington last week that they could have cheaper interest? All the farmers have to do now is to find something new to put up as security. ~ Will Rogers

The blinking message light on the phone screamed at us when we walked into the bedroom of our suite. Marlboro Man audibly exhaled, clearly wishing the world--and his brother and the grain markets and the uncertainties of agriculture--would leave us alone already. I wish they'd leave us alone, too.
In light of the recent developments, though, Marlboro Man picked up the phone and dialed Tim to get an update. I excused myself to the bathroom to freshen up and put on a champagne satin negligee in an effort to thwart the external forces that were trying to rob me of my husband's attention. I brushed my teeth and spritzed myself with Jil Sander perfume before opening the door to the bedroom, where I would seduce my Marlboro Man away from his worries. I knew I could win if only I applied myself.
He was just getting off the phone when I entered the room.
"Dammit," I heard him mumble as he plopped down onto the enormous king-size bed.
Oh no. Jil Sander had her work cut out for her.
I climbed on the bed and lay beside him, resting my head on his arm. He draped his arm across my waist. I draped my leg around his.
He sighed. "The markets are totally in the shitter."
I didn't know the details, but I did know the shitter wasn't a good place.
I wanted to throw out the usual platitudes. Don't worry about it, try not to think about it, we'll figure it out, everything will be okay. But I didn't know enough about it. I knew he and his brother owned a lot ~ Ree Drummond

There is no time in modern agriculture for a farmer to write a poem or compose a song. ~ Masanobu Fukuoka