Ralph Merkle Quotes

All the people of the earth could be fed from the land within a circle of a thousand mile radius [of Kansas City.]

You've got a global food problem. You've got a food problem in the United States. You've got a food problem in Africa... in Asia. And so the truth is, the U.S. is going to have to produce more, on not very many more acres, honestly. And so we're going to have to do a better job.

A thousand acres that can feed a thousand souls is better than ten thousand acres of no more effect.

Agriculture specialists say our farm production is increasing and will go on increasing. Thank God.

Even if you could use all the organic material that you have--the animal manures, the human waste, the plant residues--and get them back on the soil, you couldn't feed more than 4 billion people. In addition, if all agriculture were organic, you would have to increase cropland area dramatically, spreading out into marginal areas and cutting down millions of acres of forests.

In a world of growing food demand, Africa is home to two-thirds of the world's unexploited arable land.

The Second Green Revolution, as the world's population grows to over 9 billion by 2050, is the new revolution we have to have to lift food production by another 75 percent.

The duty of the individual farmer, at this time, is to increase his production, particularly of food crops.

Let me tell you about a place where technology won't work. When you walk onto a farm and are standing on soil, there is no technology that is going to take that soil and transform it into something that is five times more productive.

People are going to buy cheap fertilizer so they can grow enough crops to feed themselves, which will be increasingly difficult with climate change.

It is obvious that the greatest and most important service that is required of our agriculture under existing conditions is an enlarged production of the staple food crops.

The agricultural potential of Africa is unlimited.

Let us not forget that the cultivation of the earth is the most important labor of man. When tillage begins, other arts will follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of civilization.

Farmers are farmers in the first place because they have the deep-seated instinct to raise crops, not to cut them back, not to leave the land unproductive.

… whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.

Improving the productivity of crops is fundamental to ending extreme poverty. Sixty percent of people in sub-Saharan Africa earn their living by working the land. But given the region’s generally low agricultural productivity—yields of basic cereals are five times higher in North America—Africa remains a net importer of food. This gap between supply and demand will only grow as the number of mouths to feed increases.

Saying you must rotate three crops a year, a certain percentage of your land must be set aside, and some of the other proposals, my sense is that it's a little anti-technology, and the ability of European farmers to feed Europe is reduced as a result.

Looking ahead, the bright spot in Indian agriculture is the availability of a large untapped production reservoir.

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

I believe that agriculture land - productive agricultural land with water on site - will be valuable in the future.

Friends, the soil is poor, we must sow seeds in plenty for us to garner even modest harvests.

If you want to feed the planet and keep the forests we have, you need to be able to grow roughly twice as much food per acre around the world. How do you do that? New technology.

The older, thinner, and less productive grass lands, however, frequently can be made to produce much larger yields of feed in corn than if left, as they are, in unproductive grass.

What farmers gain most of all from the increase in agricultural productivity, of course, is choice.

There are no miracles in agricultural production.