James H. Douglas Jr. Quotes

Thank you to our farmers for all you do to keep food on our tables.

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.

When you look at farmers and ranchers, for example, they are our first environmentalists. They are our first conservationists. When you look at the greatest asset that they have, it is their land. They care about the water that they drink. They care about the air that they breathe. We should see them as partners, not adversaries.

We need to defend the fruits of our land.

I love the idea that biodiesel has the potential to support farmers, especially the family farms.

When I worked with wildlife a lot in the Eighties and Nineties, I learnt the meaning of patience. And when I worked with trees, I learned the meaning of humility.

I maintain that if there is such a thing as a true and honest environmentalist, it's people like Slim and hopefully me, who have been caretakers of the land all our lives, along with the generations before us.

In fact, because of their connection to the land, farmers do more to protect and preserve our environment than almost anyone else. They are some of the best environmentalists around.

Continuity is at the heart of conservatism: ecology serves that heart.

We need a president who understands the contributions and values of rural America, a president who understands the men and women who are up at 5 a.m. every day to grow the food that we put on our tables.

Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man.

My real emphasis is on the farmers who are taking care of the land, the farmers who are really thinking about our nourishment.

When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of human civilization.

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.

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

The human body needs air, water and food. Only the good Lord makes air and water. Only farmers and ranchers make food.

She has a fertile soil, and genial climate; she has [vast] forests and abundant fisheries, unlimited water power, pastures upon which even during winter, innumerable flocks and herds can subsist, with no other care than the mere herding; and prairies which could with only moderate labor, furnish the whole of our Pacific Territories with bread.

If a man farms his land to the waste of the soil or the tress, he destroys not only his own assets but Nature's assets.

If we didn't have a sustainable agriculture industry, who would be paying the then-missing taxes to support our defence, police, roads, airports, elderly, parks, public sporting facilities and much more?

We were created to take care of, steward the land. That is mankind's purpose on earth, to steward and take care of the land as it feeds off of it.

America's ranchers and farmers produce the highest-quality products in the world.

Growing things and being able to live off the land has always appealed to me.

Our farmers feed the world. They are up before dawn and work till well after sunset. They face any number of challenges they can't control, from too much rain to not enough, from disease to insect infestations.

Harvesting the biosphere is still the most fundamental human activity. Without that, everybody's dead, really. We could do quite well without microchips, or the business site of 'Atlantic Monthly,' the gated communities, Guccis, and high-growth GDP. But we cannot do without harvesting the crops and cutting down the wood.

Connecticut farmers keep our economy running.