150 Best Quotes About Agriculture and Farming

Whether you’re looking for farm-related quotations that are inspirational, motivational, educational, or just entertaining, you’ve come to the right place.

Here’s a fun mix of farming quotes from a variety of sources including people inside and outside of ag: everyday farmers, esteemed authors, legendary presidents, and so on. This diverse roundup of iconic ag sayings contains encouragement, praise, and a little bit of sass.

1. "Not a moment of life is wasted on a farm. Others may have been more places, but haven't outlived me." - Jim Fisher

2. "To me, there’s nothing more special than providing food for other families, and that’s what we do out here." - Wanda Patsche

3. "At the very heart of agriculture is the drive to feed the world." - Ben Potter

4. "Even when commodity prices are terrible, there’s still nothing better than sitting here combining." - Bryan Kuntz

5. "Farming is intrinsically about sustaining land, family, and community." - Hal Hamilton

6. "Agriculture is the greatest and fundamentally the most important of our industries. The cities are but the branches of the tree of national life, the roots of which go deeply into the land. We all flourish or decline with the farmer." - Bernard Baruch

7. "Every day is Earth Day when you work in agriculture." - Jason Streubel

8. "I grow plants for many reasons: to please my soul, to challenge the elements or to challenge my patience, for novelty, or for nostalgia, but mostly for the joy in seeing them grow." - David Hobson

9. "From the farmers that work directly with the land, to seed dealers, to those that market the products, and everyone in between, thank you. It is because of people like you and I that we have the variety of food choices in the grocery store, giving families and consumers a peace of mind that food will always be on the shelves." - Kristeena Patsche

10. "Farmers . . . not only produce the food and fiber we need, but they help ensure our national security and economic stability." - Michelle Grainger

11. "It's your farm; it's your story. Take the opportunity to share it." - Jen Koukol

12. "If I could tell the world one thing about what being a farmer is like, it would be that a passionate heart can carry a weary back through an 80 hour work week." - Luke Woodson Kneuss

13. "Life on a farm is a school of patience; you can't hurry the crops or make an ox in two days." - Henri Alain

14. "Agriculture is such a rewarding community to be a part of, and will only continue to grow if we work together.” - Kristeena Patsche

15. "To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves." - Mahatma Gandhi

16. "We don’t just produce food. We produce nutrition for mankind." - Steve Tuttle

17. "I think it’s critical to our industry to explain what we do and why we do it." - Michele Payn

18. "A lot of satisfaction is to be had eating ‘farm to table’ every day." - Emily Zack

19. "The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it." - Arnold H. Glasgow

20. "Working hard for something we don't care about is called stress. Working hard for something we love is called passion." - Simon Sinek

21. "One of the best things about being a farmer is being able to make your way of life the way you make your living." - Jenni Tilton-Flood

22. "A good laugh is like manure to a farmer―it doesn't do any good until you spread it around." - Michael Pritchard

23. "Being a farmer . . . is a thankless job with long hours and lots of hard work―but it is a beautiful lifestyle with amazing food and a great community." - Helena Sylvester

24. "I farm because I love the full circle of planting and nurturing a seed. I love the constant learning and that we are always looking for better ways to do something. I love the fact that this cotton I grow will touch so many people. And while I'm embracing all these new technologies to grow that crop better, I can still look out upon a corner post that I know my great grandfather set." - Ryan Wieck

25. "It’s rare to see a farmer who has spent a lifetime working with all kinds of machinery, excitable livestock, and the extremes of weather who has not suffered physical injury . . . but farmers continue taking these chances every day year after year for their entire working careers. They are an extremely dedicated lot." - Ernie Flint

26. "My heart has always been in farming." - Tom Rohrich

27. "When my time as a farmer is over, I want to be able to say . . . that I was a good steward." - Laura Rutherford

28. "I was born to be a farmer. It is what I know and what I love." - Marla Rae Anders

29. "Why do I farm? I started farming because I liked driving tractors and combines. . . . And now, it has morphed into doing something that is larger than ourselves and benefits as many people as we can." - Bryce Wrigley

30. "Why do I farm? Because I feel a pride in owning our own business, and I love the independence of it -- even if it means we can't just take off and do things whenever we want because we have farming commitments." - Kellie Blair

31. "Whether conventional, sustainable, young, old or tired, farmers are fascinating thinkers." - Polly Dalton

32. "We can’t live without farmers, and yet many of them are living paycheck to paycheck. . . . We need to be asking ourselves what we value and why, and then work towards more balanced relationships." - Jesse Solomon

33. "We're facing tough times in agriculture. But farmers are nothing if not resilient." - John Motter

34. "Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bands." - Thomas Jefferson

35. "I love every minute I get to spend in a tractor." - Austin Wiseman

36. "I love that the job we chose isn't just a career, it's a community. Great people, great friends, great family!" - Amanda Wilson

37. "There [is] a different level of satisfaction that comes from doing something for somebody … . I always used to tell people that I farm because I can’t stand not to. And that’s still true, but it’s coupled with that different sense of purpose than what I had before." - Bryce Wrigley

38. "You will either step forward into growth, or you will step backward into safety." - Abraham Maslow

39. "The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn't still be a farmer." - Will Rogers

40. "The root of joy is gratefulness." - David Steindl-Rast

41. "Farming is a business. A very dynamic and progressive business." - Tim Hammerich

42. "Agriculture is a universal language." - Brielle Wright

43. "We need to take back the concept of sustainability — because nobody is working harder to be sustainable than America’s farmers and ranchers." - Zippy Duvall

44. "Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records." - William Arthur Ward

45. "Building the trust of consumers isn’t just a job for company representatives or university scientists. Farmers can also be a powerful tool in moving the pendulum toward an informed public that understands how technology is used safely to produce food." - Jessie Scott

46. "Today's agriculture industry has fused the latest expertise with a heritage of determination and a loyalty to the land, producing the finest resource management and food production the world has ever witnessed." - Michael A. Cawley

47. "[Ranching] gives a person a little confidence, a little bit of self-reliance because you know you have to solve the problems yourself." - Sandra Day O’Connor

48. "Farmers are people too and have the same concerns as everyone else about food." - Lela Perez

49. "The farmer, is the only man in our economy who has to buy everything he buys at retail - sell everything he sells at wholesale - and pay the freight both ways." - John F. Kennedy

50. "Farming is a family affair." - Kyla Mauk

51. "By using modern technologies, today’s farmers grow more crops on the same amount of land, using less plowing and pesticides, and feeding more people." - Zippy Duvall

52. "I wouldn’t be half the person I am without the experience of growing up on the farm." - Erin Ehnle Brown

53. "I've learned everything I know and established all my values because I was raised in a 4-H loving, hard working, … tractor obsessing, farm family." - Brianna Gwirtz

54. "Without farmers, ranchers and agriculture, food would not be on our plates." - Animal Ag Alliance

55. "There is no other community as connected as those in agriculture." - Ryan Goodman

56. "Next time you sit down with your family for a delicious dinner, remember the people who are working around the clock to feed your family and the families of people all over the world." - Kyla Mauk

57. "There’s no feeling in the world like being in a combine at sunset, knowing we’re part of the process that feeds people all over the world." - Erin Ehnle Brown

58. "I thank agriculture for filling my belly, for providing some of the most stunning vistas, for teaching society what hard work looks like, and for doing the business of farming and ranching so the rest of society can choose another path. Agriculturists make the difference!!" - Ann DeLay

59. "Do you want to change the world? Work in agriculture. It will be an entomologist who cures malaria. It will be a hydrologist who creates clean water for the world. It will be a plant breeder that will solve world hunger." - Keegan Kautzky

60. "It is so important to remember that food does not just come from the grocery store. There are hard-working, passionate people behind each and every food that we enjoy eating." - Kyla Mauk

61. "I hate when a farmer says 'I'm just a farmer.' This farmer doesn't realize what he does for America, what he does for the economy and what he does for his family. Farmers are very important." - Bob Dole

62. "Winners are not those who never fail, but those who never quit." - Edwin Louis Cole

63. "I am so thankful that I can be involved in something that affects every person on the planet who eats food, wears clothing, enjoys a weekend drive through rural areas, or sits down to a Thanksgiving meal." - Ryan Goodman

64. "The best treatment a crop can have is the shadow of the [person] who owns it." - Dennis Lindberg

65. "My favorite thing about being a farmer is the work ethic. It's in you. You really learn how to work hard and it sticks with you." - Karen Burwinkel

66. "You cannot have a happy, healthy and peaceful continent without food." - John Muhaise-Bikalemesa

67. "Farming is not just a job. It's a responsibility and a privilege." - Joel Watson

68. "I love those connections that make this big old world feel like a little village." - Gina Bellman

69. "Growing food or knowing a skill is empowering. You know that whatever may come your way, with your two hands you can survive or make a difference in this world." - Jules Dervaes

70. "If you're going to complain about farmers, make sure you don't talk with your mouth full." - Molly Tiernan

71. "As agriculture becomes a smaller segment of the population, it’s all the more important to speak with a louder voice." - Patrick Pfingsten

72. "I chose the agricultural life because it just feels right." - Andrew Kilduff

73. "We can talk about the grass being greener, but there are many that would love the opportunity to farm that will never get the chance. I try not to take that for granted." - Kellie Blair

74. "Without agriculture it is not possible to have a city, stock market, banks, university, church or army. Agriculture is the foundation of civilization and any stable economy." - Allan Savory

75. "Harvest is the most wonderful time of year!" - Jacquelyne Leffler

76. "Growing your own food is like printing your own money." - Rod Finley

77. "The best way to fight poverty is through agriculture." - Solace Agha Fominyen

78. "What I stand for is what I stand on." - Wendell Berry

79. "The more I work with people, the more I like cows." - Jolene Brown

80. "Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing." - Theodore Roosevelt

81. "Farming is a calling. A calling to risk everything, to provide everything, for everyone." - Kelly Griggs

82. "My favorite thing about being a farmer is being in a relationship with the Earth." - Bethanee Wright

83. "If America could be, once again, a nation of self-reliant farmers, craftsmen, hunters, ranchers, and artists, then the rich would have little power to dominate others. Neither to serve nor to rule: That was the American dream." - Edward Abbey

84. "People don't farm because they are too dumb to move to town and have a desk job. They are smart enough to keep the world alive!" - Lindy K

85. "Let’s remember truck drivers, nurses, burger flippers, and everybody else who works hard—and also the one-percenters [who grow our food] who make so much of our diverse and evolving workforce possible." - Daniel Kelley

86. "If those of us in agriculture aren’t sharing our story of farming loud and proud, then the general public will hear about farming from people or organizations outside of our industry, and they may have a negative agenda. . . . It’s better if the story of agriculture is being told by the people in agriculture." - Justin Williams

87. "Farming isn’t a battle against nature, but a partnership with it. It is respecting the basics of nature in action and ensuring that they continue." - Jeff Koehler

88. "I love this as a job because it changes every day. I'm always learning something new -- whether it is how to grow a crop, how to be an electrician, how to be a plumber, a welder, a fabricator … . I also get to play with really big toys." - Ryan Wieck

89. "The world needs more people like the farmers, mechanics, miners, etc. Those who are behind the scenes but work just as hard if not harder than anyone." - Ethan Clarke

90. "The city lights are cool. But farm light is way better." - Crystal Blin

91. "A society grows great when old men [and women] plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in." - Greek Proverb

92. "As fewer people farm, more are disconnected from food production—and they have a poor understanding of what farmers actually do. Let the record show I spend as much time in front of a computer analyzing yield data and commodity prices as I do behind the steering wheel of a tractor. And I don’t wear overalls." - Daniel Kelley

93. "Country isn't cowboy boots and daisy dukes, it's a farmer's tan and calloused hands." - Earl Dibbles Jr.

94. "The grass is greener where you water it." - Neil Barringham

95. "My farmer idols or superheroes are the unnamed workers who farm across the United States, because their individual contributions provide an enormous bounty of food and foodstuffs, and seldom are they truly appreciated for how hard and long they toil, and for how little their efforts are rewarded." - Andrew Kilduff

96. "We’re nothing without the farmers. They’re the backbone of this country. And everything we do to help them helps our country and its future." - President Ronald Reagan

97. "We need more young people involved in farming because the future needs real food." - Helena Sylvester

98. "Do what you love to do, and be around things that make you smile. The cows make me smile every day." - David Jackson

99. "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." - Ike Skelton

100. "Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant." - Robert Louis Stevenson

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

102. "The best part of growing food is loving what you grow and feeding those you love." - Blue Merle Farm

103. "If we can recognize all that farmworkers have to offer, we’ll have a much richer food system." - Hannah Freeman

104. "If I could tell the world one thing about what being a farmer is like it would be how rewarding it feels to grow something from a seed." - Tom Deacon

105. "The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will." - Vince Lombardi

106. "Our farmers deserve praise, not condemnation; and their efficiency should be cause for gratitude, not something for which they are penalized." - John F. Kennedy

107. "You've got to get up every morning with determination if you're going to go to bed with satisfaction." - George Lorimer

108. "Family farms and ranches are the best stewards of the land. Our goal is to pass the land to the next generation of agricultural producers." - Bruce Shultz

109. "We pay the doctor to make us better when we should really be paying the farmer to keep us healthy." - Robyn O'Brien

110. Farming is "possibly the most spiritually, emotionally, and physically engrossing pursuit one can make." - Andrew Kilduff

111. "In no other country do so few people produce so much food, to feed so many, at such reasonable prices." - President Dwight D. Eisenhower

112. "Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing." - Camille Pissarro

113. "Let us never forget that the cultivation of the earth is the most important labor of man." - Daniel Webster

114. "Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

115. "One of the key solutions to a secure food system is more and more local, small farms." - Mary Benson

116. "What you put in your mouth is a personal choice. What a farmer produces is also a personal choice. One should not overpower the other." - Michele Payn-Knoper

117. "There must be effort before there is excellence." - Spencer W. Kimball

118. "The first farmer was the first man, and all historic nobility rests on possession and use of land." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

120. "Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them." - Liberty Hyde Bailey

121. "I had rather be on my farm than be emperor of the world." - President George Washington

122. "Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out." - Robert Collier

123. "Agriculture is now, as it’s always been, the basis of civilization. The 6 million farms of the United States…form the basis of all other achievements of the American people, and are more fruitful than all their other resources." - President Theodore Roosevelt

124. "Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway." - John Wayne

125. "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." - President George Washington

126. "Don't approach a goat from the front, a horse from the back, or a fool from any side." - Yiddish Proverb

127. "Farmers farm for the love of farming." - Wendell Berry

128. "My grandfather used to say that once in your life you need a doctor, a lawyer, a policeman and a preacher but every day, three times a day, you need a farmer." - Brenda Schoepp

129. "The simple hearth of the small farm is the true center of our universe." - Masanobu Fukuoka

130. "A nation that can feed its people is a nation more secure." - President George W. Bush

131. "The first supermarket supposedly appeared on the American landscape in 1946. . . . Until then, where was all the food? Dear folks, the food was in homes, gardens, local fields, and forests. It was near kitchens, near tables, near besides. It was in the pantry, the cellar, the backyard." - Joel Salatin

132. "As a farmer, you learn quick: you don't get anything that you don't work hard for." - Evan Thomas

133. "Some old-fashioned things like fresh air and sunshine are hard to beat." - Laura Ingalls Wilder

134. "We never know the Worth of Water, till the Well is dry." - Thomas Fuller

135. "When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of human civilization." - Daniel Webster

136. "Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven't planted." - David Bly

137. "Civilizations that get too far from the land are bound to decay." - J.I. Rodale

138. "The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living on a small piece of land." - Abraham Lincoln

139. "You can't build a peaceful world on empty stomachs and human misery." - Norman Borlaug

140. "Every person who seeks to practise agriculture with the full success which it admits—and that is the natural aim of every one who engages in it—must possess energy, activity, reflection, perseverance, and a knowledge of all the kindred and accessory sciences." - Albrecht Thaer

141. "We really love what we do. We love seeing the result of our hard work." - Ryan Wieck

142. "The richest soil, if uncultivated, produces the rankest weeds." - Plutarch

143. "It feels good at the end of the day to know you made a product that other people are going to enjoy." - Jericho Sanchez

144. "The farm is part of me." - Erich Wehrenberg

145. "The discovery of agriculture was the first big step toward a civilized life." - Arthur Keith

146. "Agriculture is the most healthful, most useful and most noble employment of man." - President George Washington

147. "I can honestly say I've never regretted the decision to change gears and become a farmer. The chance to build something together with my husband and family and have something to show for our labor makes whatever uncertainties we face worth it." - Kellie Blair

148. "Getting to watch other Farmers/Ranchers share their operations with folks is one of my favorite things. It brings me so much joy to watch the pride in their eyes when they talk about their agricultural passion!" - Jacquelyne Leffler

149. "Agriculture is a very unique industry for a number of reasons, but one of the more unique paradigms of ag is that it is an industry built upon the generous sharing of information among its participants. Most neighboring businesses who are in the same industry view each other as competitors. Farmers view neighboring businesses as neighbors. And generally, there is a spirit of cooperation and helpfulness from neighbor to neighbor." - Pat Rogers

150. "We all have the ability to share what we do, how we do it, to the uneducated, from us, the farmers." - Kelly Griggs

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