#agriculture

To husband is to use with care, to keep, to save, to make last, to conserve. Old usage tells us that there is a husbandry also of the land, of the soil, of the domestic plants and animals - obviously because of the importance of these things to the household. And there have been times, one of which is now, when some people have tried to practice a proper human husbandry of the nondomestic creatures in recognition of the dependence of our households and domestic life upon the wild world. Husbandry is the name of all practices that sustain life by connecting us conservingly to our places and our world; it is the art of keeping tied all the strands in the living network that sustains us. And so it appears that most and perhaps all of industrial agriculture's manifest failures are the result of an attempt to make the land produce without husbandry. ↗

— Wendell Berry

#farming #husbandry #land #sustainability #art

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

#climate-change #diet #nutrition #organic #change

You shall see rude and sturdy, experienced and wise men, keeping their castles, or teaming up their summer’s wood, or chopping alone in the woods, men fuller of talk and rare adventure in the sun and wind and rain, than a chestnut is of meat; who were out not only in ‘75 and 1812, but have been out every day of their lives; greater men than Homer, or Chaucer, or Shakespeare, only they never got time to say so; they never took to the way of writing. Look at their fields, and imagine what they might write, if ever they should put pen to paper. Or what have they not written on the face of the earth already, clearing, and burning, and scratching, and harrowing, and plowing, and subsoiling, in and in, and out and out, and over and over, again and again, erasing what they had already written for want of parchment. ↗

— Henry David Thoreau

#inspirational-life #life-philosophy #nature #transcendence #work

Most of us are creatures so comforted by habit, it can take something on the order of religion to invoke new, more conscious behaviors--however glad we may be afterward that we went to the trouble. ↗

— Barbara Kingsolver

#religion

It is possible, I think, to say that... a Christian agriculture [is] formed upon the understanding that it is sinful for people to misuse or destroy what they did not make. The Creation is a unique, irreplaceable gift, therefore to be used with humility, respect, and skill. ↗

— Wendell Berry

#christianity #land #stewardship #respect

In a time of disorder [Laertes] has returned to the care of the earth, the foundation of life and hope. And Odysseus finds him in an act emblematic of the best and most responsible kind of agriculture: an old man caring for a young tree. (pg. 123, The Body and the Earth) ↗

— Wendell Berry

#earth #laertes #odysseus #odyssey #art

When you concentrate on agriculture and industry and are frugal in expenditures, Heaven cannot impoverish your state. ↗

— Xun Zi

#cannot #concentrate #expenditures #frugal #heaven

I want to be Miss USA or Miss America. I would bring the trophy back to Nebraska. My interests are agriculture and corn. Hey, I'm just riding this train as long as I can. As long as I'm having fun, I'll do it. When it stops being fun, I'll try something else. ↗

— Gabrielle Union

#america #back #being #bring #corn

At President Obama's direction, the U.S Department of Agriculture is working hard to unleash the power of America's innovators and entrepreneurs to build a green energy economy. ↗

— Tom Vilsack

#america #build #department #direction #economy

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

#america #city #grew #i #knew