Each year on the 4th of July, Americans get together with family and friends to celebrate the birth of our nation. Our country's founding fathers probably wouldn't have been able to imagine what America would look like more than 234 years after they signed the Declaration of Independence, but they certainly were right about one thing: the importance of farming to America and its ability to propel our fledgling nation into one of the world's superpowers.

Here are just a few things that our founding fathers had to say about agriculture and its significance to the future of our country:

"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

"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." - George Washington

"There seem to be but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth. The first is by war, as the Romans did, in plundering their conquered neighbors. This is robbery. The second by commerce, which is generally cheating. The third by agriculture, the only honest way, wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into the ground, in a kind of continual miracle, wrought by the hand of God in his favor, as a reward for his innocent life and his virtuous industry." - Benjamin Franklin

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

More recently, American leaders have continued to praise our nation's farmers and extol the virtues of a strong agricultural industry:

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

"I do not believe there ever was any life more attractive to a vigorous young fellow than life on a cattle ranch in those days. It was a fine, healthy life, too; it taught a man self-reliance, hardihood, and the value of instant decision...I enjoyed the life to the full." - Theodore Roosevelt

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

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

And, happily, the Obama Administration seems to be following suit and offering its support to American farmers. In a recent speech, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack discussed how importing more food could compromise safety standards and leave Americans with less money to spend on other things.

So, this 4th of July while you're grilling your burgers, drinking a beer, or gnawing an ear of corn, pause for a moment to thank the American farmers who made your picnic possible.