No society has fulfilled its democratic promise if people go hungry... If some go without food they have surely been deprived of all power. The existence of hunger belies the existence of democracy.

The act of putting into your mouth what the earth has grown is perhaps your most direct interaction with the earth.

I had left graduate school, determined that I wasn't going to do anything else to "save the world" until I understood how I could get at the underlying causes of deepening suffering. To do that, I had to start by admitting that I didn't know.

What we need to get right is not focusing on the fear associated with quantity - not enough, scarcity, and lack - and moving instead to a worldview that explores quality and connectedness.

I think we are at a new evolutionary stage. We evolved in tight-knit tribes in which we faced death if we didn't have the support of the rest of the tribe.

Despite a tenfold increase in the use of pesticides between 1947 and 1974 (in the US), crop losses due to pests have...remained at an estimated 33%. Losses due to insects alone have nearly doubled, ...from 7% in the 1942-1951 period to about 13% in 1974.

Old models of farming with chemicals and credit mostly favored privileged men.