Our cover story this week, about Grow Hope Farm, takes a look the growing movement of community farming.
Which made us wonder just what is the state of agriculture in the gold ole' United States?
Not surprisingly, the U.S. Department of Agriculture keeps a lot of random statistics on hand. Such as...
- We are second in the world in tractor ownership, with 4.8 million of them.
- There are 179,448,000 hectares of arable and permanent cropland
- Of which 28,710,000 is devoted to corn (making us the top corn growing nation)
- We also export 12,000,000 bales of cotton annually, another top place ranking
- However, we are only 15th in the world in rice production, and 40th in the world in the use of fertilizer.
But the most interesting statistic is that only 2 percent of our population now works in agriculture, placing us at 145th in the world.
Also, our editor really wants his own tractor for Christmas.
Source: www.statisticbrain.com/u-s-agriculture-statistics/