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Agriculture is America’s #1 Export and More...
January, 2010 page 9
•About 17 percent of raw U.S. agriculture products are exported yearly.
•One-fourth of the world’s beef and nearly one-fifth of the world’s grain, milk and eggs are produced in the United States.
•One in three U.S. farm acres is planted for export, and 25 percent of gross farm income comes directly from exports.
•Through research and changes in production practices, today’s food producers are providing Americans with the widest variety of foods ever.
•Research and advancements in biotechnology are now in the marketplace with tastier fruits and vegetables that stay fresh longer and are not damaged by insects.
•Consumers derive health benefits from changes in farm production including less fat in meat. Tofu, a soybean product, has been shown to reduce the risk of some cancer and heart disease.
•With modern methods, one acre of land in the United States (about the size of a football field) can produce: 42,000 lbs. of strawberries, 11,000 heads of lettuce, 25,400 lbs. of potatoes, 8,900 lbs. of sweet corn, or 640 lbs. of cotton lint.
•American consumers spend the lowest percentage of their annual income on food - around 10 percent.
•Cotton is by the far the most dominant fiber produced in the United States and is used for apparel, home fabrics as well as industrial uses.
•The agricultural industry employs 20 percent of America’s workforce, or approximately 21 million people.
•Farmers and ranchers are the first environmentalists, maintaining and improving the soil and natural resources to pass on to future generations.
•Farmers use reduced tillage practices on more than 72 million acres to prevent erosion.
•Farmers maintain over 1.3 million acres of grass waterways, allowing water to flow naturally from crops without eroding soil.
•Contour farming, planting crops on hillsides instead of up and down, keeps soil from washing away. About 26 million acres in the United States are managed this way.
•Cattle ranchers and others control water run-off with sod waterways and diversions, erosion control structures and catch basins.
•Just as urban families recycle grass, newspaper and aluminum, farm families have practiced recycling for a long time by applying manure to fields to replace nutrients in the soil.
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