" But the purpose of agriculture is quite different from that of a factory. It has to provide food in
order that the race may flourish and persist. The best results are obtained if the food is
fresh and the soil is fertile. Quality is more important than weight of produce. Farming is
therefore a vital matter for the population and ranks with the supply of drinking water,
fresh air, and protection from the weather. Our water supplies do not always pay their
way; the provision of green belts and open spaces does not yield a profit; our housing
schemes are frequently uneconomic. Why, then, should the quality of the food on which
still more depends than water, oxygen, or warmth be looked at in a different way? The
people must be fed whatever happens. Why not, then, make a supreme effort to see that
they are properly fed? [...] The
financial system, after all, is but a secondary matter. Economics therefore, in failing to
insist on these elementary truths, has been guilty of a grave error of judgement. "

― Albert Howard