Interesting Statistics About "Feeding the World"

by: Jill Richardson

Mon Dec 19, 2011 at 00:32:42 AM PST

Maize: 158 million ha
Oil palm: 14 million ha
Rapeseed: 30 million ha
Soybean: 90 million ha
Sunflower: 27 million ha
Sugarcane: 23 million ha
Plantation forestry (paper & lumber): 139 million ha

Total: 481 million ha

Included among this is a little less than 36 million ha of biofuel feedstocks (the number was 36 million ha in 2008 and since the numbers above are 2007, the biofuel feedstock amount was presumably a bit less), which includes 8.3 million in the EU (mainly rapeseed), 7.5 million ha in the U.S. (mainly corn), and 6.4 million ha in Latin American (mainly sugarcane). And I believe I read recently that some 70% of corn is fed to livestock. If that's true, then about 40 million ha of corn goes to uses other than livestock and ethanol, i.e. feeding people.

In 2007, the total world arable area used for farming was 1554 million ha. Of that, the 441 million hectares of crops noted above used for oil, biofuels, livestock feed, paper, etc, make up about 28%. In addition to the 1554 million ha of cropland, there was 3,400 million ha of pasture.

Where Does All the Corn Go?

by: Jill Richardson

Sun Jan 03, 2010 at 22:13:47 PM PST

About 41% went to "food, seed, and industrial use." That is broken up as follows:

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS): 3.85%
Glucose and dextrose: 1.90%
Starch: 1.91%
Alcohol for fuel: 30.38%
Alcohol for beverages and manufacturing: 1.11%
Cereals and other products: 1.59%
Seed: 0.18%

Exports made up 15.35% of our corn harvest. That leaves nearly 44% of our corn unaccounted for. And THAT is (most likely) the exact amount of U.S. corn that was used as livestock feed in MY 2008-2009.

More Data on What We Buy at the Supermarket

by: Jill Richardson

Mon Oct 19, 2009 at 11:00:54 AM PDT

The American Health Crisis Explained

by: Jill Richardson

Sun Oct 18, 2009 at 12:15:01 PM PDT

1. Carbonated beverages
2. Milk
3. Fresh bread and rolls
4. Beer/Ale/Hard cider
5. Salty snacks
6. Natural cheese
7. Frozen dinners/entrees
8. Cold cereal
9. Wine
10. Cigarettes

SOURCE: INFORMATION RESOURCES INC. (IRI)

There's a lot of complaining that healthy foods like fruits and vegetables cost a lot, but we clearly aren't breaking the bank on fruit and veggie expenditures. Also, I love the list item "natural cheese." Would that be instead of unnatural cheese?

The Rise of Direct-to-Consumer Marketing

by: Jill Richardson

Tue Jun 16, 2009 at 12:05:59 PM PDT

• North Central (IL, IN, IA, KS, MI, MN, MO, NE, ND, OH, SD, WI): $300.8 million
  
• Far West (AK, CA, HI, NV, OR, WA): $274.2 million
  
• Northeast (CT, ME, MA, NH, NY, RI, VT): $212.9 million
  
• Mid-Atlantic (DE, DC, MD, NJ, PA, VA, WV): $166.7 million
  
• Southeast (AL, FL, GA, KY, MS, NC, SC, TN): $122.9 million
  
• Southwest (AR, LA, OK, TX): $67.6 million
  
• Rocky Mountain (AZ, CO, ID, NM, MT, UT, WY): $66.3 million

The rankings change when you look to see which region saw the greatest growth in direct-to-consumer sales:

Far West: +134.9%
Rocky Mountain: +134.7%
Northeast: +110%
Southwest: +105.8%
Entire US: +104.7%
North Central: +96.5%
Southeast: +93.1%
Mid-Atlantic: +73.6%

More below...

Organic Statistics

by: Jill Richardson

Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 08:00:00 AM PDT

Organic sales may have quintupled, but between 1997 and 2005, organic acreage in the U.S. only doubled. Just to give you an idea of how American agriculture is keeping up with that demand, consider these stats from the 2007 Census of Agriculture:

Organic Farms: 18,211
Total Farms; 2,204,792

Organic Farm Sales: $1,709,111,000
Value of All Agricultural Products Sold: $297,220,491,000

Organic Cropland: 1,288,088 acres
Organic Pastureland: 975,380 acres
Land under Organic Conversion: 616,358 acres
Total cropland in America: 309,607,601 acres

(While obviously a very small percent of land is organic, the numbers differ from food to food... 5% of vegetable acres are organic, as are 2.5% of fruit and nut acreage, 0.5% of pasture, and 0.2% of corn and soybeans.)

So it's no wonder why 44% of organic handlers reported a shortage of organic ingredients or products in 2004... we're just not producing enough! To solve the supply problem, we're getting more and more organics from overseas. As the report notes, the USDA is working to fix the supply program by providing incentives for farmers to convert more land to organic. You may remember the recent announcement of $50 million in conservation grant funding (under the EQIP program) for farmers converting to organic production... that's part of what they are doing to increase our organic production.

Another nice detail is that government spending on organics has gone up five-fold between 2002 and 2008. See below for more numbers and facts about organics...

International Food Budget Data

by: Jill Richardson

Fri Jun 05, 2009 at 08:00:00 AM PDT

News from the USDA

by: Jill Richardson

Mon Apr 06, 2009 at 12:00:00 PM PDT

Rising Prices, Declining Farm Income

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Feb 26, 2009 at 19:00:00 PM PST

Why Don't San Diegoans Participate in Food Stamps?

by: Jill Richardson

Tue Feb 24, 2009 at 19:02:16 PM PST

Let's take a look at San Diego as a case study: Why aren't San Diegoans getting food stamps? And what can we learn from San Diego that might help us increase the participation rate nationally.

My Alternet Article

by: Jill Richardson

Tue Feb 24, 2009 at 14:24:01 PM PST

Ag Census 2007: Who Grows What Where?

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Feb 12, 2009 at 15:36:18 PM PST

Does it follow then that the smaller you are, the more likely you are to grow "real food" (what the government refers to as "specialty crops")? In other words, which farms are growing our fruits and vegetables? The numbers there were less clear, particularly for vegetables.

So today I decided to check into something else: are all of our fruits and veggies coming from specific parts of the country? If that's the case, then even if large farms grow as much veggies as the small ones, I think it's clear that they aren't providing us with the fresh, local, organic food that we desire. Here's what I found...

2007 Ag Census: Who Grows All The Fucking Corn?

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Feb 12, 2009 at 00:36:53 AM PST

Farm Size	% of Sales($) From Corn	% of Sales($) from Wheat	% of Sales($) from Soy
1-9 acres	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
10-49 acres	0.8%	0.1%	0.5%
50-69 acres	1.5%	0.2%	0.9%
70-99 acres	3.0%	0.3%	1.7%
100-139 acres	3.9%	0.4%	2.3%
140-179 acres	5.2%	0.8%	3.5%
180-219 acres	6.2%	0.7%	3.7%
220-259 acres	7.4%	0.8%	4.4%
260-499 acres	10.9%	1.3%	6.1%
500-999 acres	16.2%	2.0%	8.8%
1000-1999 acres	21.1%	4.0%	11.2%
2000+ acres	18.2%	8.6%	8.0%
All Farms	13.4%	3.6	6.8%

Because this table is measured in sales dollars as a percent of all sales dollars, you can't tell how many acres were planted of each crop. You CAN tell whose business is more reliant on corn, wheat, and soy though. And that's obvious: the bigger you are, the more likely you are to grow corn, wheat, and soy.

Ag Census 2007: A Profile of Farms 1000-1999 Acres

by: Jill Richardson

Wed Feb 11, 2009 at 00:42:04 AM PST

These farms made up 4.2% of all American farms in 2007 - a slight decline since they peaked at 4.7% in 2002. In 1964, they made up 2.7% of all farms and that percent has gone up throughout history until 2002.

In absolute numbers, there had been a constant increase in farms of this size since 1964 (when there were 84,999 of them), increasing to 102,078 in 1987. They've been on the decline since then. Clearly, the successful farms grew larger and moved into the next largest category by size (farms with over 2000 acres) while the unsuccessful ones went bust and that's the source of these farms' declining numbers. The question is: did more of them grow larger, or did more of them go bust? Are they succeeding financially?

The answer to that question is: YES! These farms are overwhelmingly successful financially. The rough breakdown as I see it is: About 20% of farms of this size are owned by people with other sources of money who do not need to make money with their farms. A very small percent (3.1%) are broke and actually attempting to farm. About half, perhaps slightly more, are really raking in the cash - $250k or more in sales. And an overwhelming majority of these farms are profitable.

These farms may make up only 4.2% of all farms, but their sales represent 17.7% of sales by all farms of any size and their land makes up 13.8% of all farm acres in the U.S. And these farms are totally on the government take. 22% of all government money that goes to farms goes to farms between 1000 and 1999 acres. A farm of this size is more likely than a farm of any other size to receive government subsidies.

So who are these farmers, and what's happening on their farms?

Ag Census 2007: A Profile of the Largest Farms (2000+ Acres)

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Feb 05, 2009 at 11:30:41 AM PST

These farms made up 3.6% of all American farms in 2007 - a slight decline since they peaked at 3.7% in 2002. In 1964, they made up 1.9% of all farms and that percent has gone up throughout history until 2002.

In absolute numbers, there has been a constant increase in farms of this size since 1964 (when there were 60,293 of them), increasing to 80,393 in 2007. In fact, despite their decrease as a percent of all farms in the last 5 years, the absolute number of farms with 2000 or more acres has increased by 2423 farms.

These farms may make up only 3.6% of all farms, but their sales represent 27% of sales by all farms of any size and their land makes up over half of all farm acres in the U.S. And these farms are totally on the government take. Nearly 1/3 of all government money that goes to farms goes to farms over 2000 acres.

In short - the number of these large farms has grown consistently throughout history and does not show a sign of stopping. These farms are profiting. Only a very small percent are struggling financially, and while about 12% of these farms are retired or have a principle occupation other than farming, the remainder are farmers by occupation and financially successful to boot.

So who are these farmers, and what's happening on their farms?