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Agriculture

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Editor's drawer/Article


SEE ALSO: Agriculture
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Oct 2006 Minimum amount of USDA farm subsidies since 2000 that have been paid out to people who do not farm: $1,300,000,000
Source:

Washington Post (Washington)

Oct 2006 Estimated amount that a farmed tiger could fetch if sold for parts, according to an Indian free-market think tank: $120,000
Source:

Liberty Institute (New Delhi)

Mar 2006Number of weapons that have been turned into tools for African farmers by a British nonprofit since 2001: 2,200
Source:

APT Enterprise Development (Moreton-in-Marsh, England)

Mar 2006Number of farm implements that a rocket launcher yields: 5
Source:

APT Enterprise Development (Moreton-in-Marsh, England)

Nov 2004Estimated number of Afghans who died in last year’s pistachio harvest : 50
Source:

Afghan Non-Governmental Organization Security Office (Kabul, Afghanistan)

Mar 2004Calories of fuel energy used by U.S. farms in 1940 per calorie of food produced : 0.4
Source:

The Land Institute (Salina, Kans.)

Nov 2003Amount by which federal subsidies to U.S. cotton farmers last crop-year exceeded 2001’s U.S. cotton sales: $300,000,000
Source:

U.S. Department of Agriculture/Oxfam America (Washington)

Oct 2003Chances that farmed salmon contains PCB levels that are 4 times higher than those found in beef : 7 in 10
Source:

Environmental Working Group (Washington, D.C.)

Jun 2003Number of sites nationwide where farmers grew "pharmaceutical crops" last year: 34
Source:

U.S. Department of Agriculture

Apr 2003Percentage in import duties on Vietnamese catfish sought from the Commerce Department last year by U.S. catfish farmers: 190
Source:

U.S.-Vietnam Trade Council (Washington)

Apr 2003Percentage of California's economy that is accounted for by agriculture: 7
Source:

Dan Sumner, University of California, Davis

Jun 2002Total amount of federal farm subsidies received by Kenneth Lay since 1996: $12,038
Source:

Environmental Working Group (Washington)

Nov 2001Number of sparrows requested by Chinese farmers in September to help end a plague of locusts: 20,000
Source:

Xinhua News Service (Beijing)

Jun 2001Estimated percentage of U.S. pre-harvest crops lost to insects in 1945 and last year, respectively: 7, 13
Source:

David Pimentel, Cornell University (Ithaca, N.Y.)

Apr 2001Tons of antibiotics and antimicrobials given to healthy U.S. farm animals each year: 12,500
Source:

Union of Concerned Scientists (Cambridge, Mass.)

Dec 2000Ratio of the number of bushels of wheat one barrel of oil could buy in 1950 to the number it could buy today: 1:10
Source:

International Monetary Fund (N.Y.C.)/Worldwatch Institute (Washington)

Dec 2000Rank of the United States among the world's largest exporters of grain and importers of oil: 1
Source:

Worldwatch Institute (Washington)

Aug 2000Amount by which last year's WTO accord is projected to increase annual U.S. grain sales to China: $1,000,000,000
Source:

U.S. Department of Agriculture

Aug 2000Percentage of last year's U.S. grain sales to the European Union this represents: 96
Source:

U.S. Department of Agriculture

Jun 2000Estimated acres of topsoil eroded worldwide each year: 3,700,000,000
Source:

International Soil Reference and Information Centre (Wageningen, The Netherlands)

Jun 2000Ratio of the average 1850 price in Texas of a healthy male slave to that of 200 acres of prime farmland: 1:1
Source:

Texas State Historical Association (Austin)

May 2000Percentage change since 1997 in direct government payments to U.S. farmers: +200
Source:

U.S. Department of Agriculture

May 2000Average amount of revenue per acre generated by a U.S. farm of fewer than ten acres: $1,902.50
Source:

U.S. Department of Agriculture

May 2000Average revenue per acre generated by a farm of more than 2,000 acres: $21.40
Source:

U.S. Department of Agriculture

May 2000Ratio of U.S. corn exports to Europe last year to such exports in 1996: 1:220
Source:

U.S. Department of Agriculture

Apr 2000Maximum tonnage by which pollution reduced China's potential annual wheat production between 1994 and 1996: 10,000
Source:

Prof. Bill Chameides, Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta)

Apr 2000Tons of wheat China imported during the period between 1994-1996: 10,000
Source:

Prof. Bill Chameides, Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta)

Jan 2000Acres of hemp grown by “patriotic” U.S. farmers in 1942 at the behest of the U.S. government: 36,000
Source:

Hemp for Victory, USDA Motion Picture Services Division (Washington)

Jan 2000Inches by which today's largest corncobs exceed the length of those grown in Mexico in 1500: 12
Source:

Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel

Nov 1999Percentage of turkeys tested by the Agriculture Department in 1996 and 1997 that were infected by campylobacteria: 90
Source:

Center for Science in the Public Interest (Washington)

Sep 1999Number of millennia before humans first farmed that farmer ants were farming the spongy fungus on which they feed: 50,000
Source:

Prof. Ulrich Mueller, University of Texas (Austin)

Apr 1999Number of farmers that Monsanto has investigated for “seed piracy” since 1997: 500
Source:

Monsanto Co. (St. Louis, Mo.)

Sep 1998Percentage change since 1996 in the income of North Dakota farmers: -98
Source:

Bureau of Economic Analysis (Washington)

Aug 1998Acres of U.S. farmland lost to “development” between 1982 and 1992, per hour: 50
Source:

American Farmland Trust (Washington)

Jul 1998Number of field hands working at Mt. Vernon this summer as Pioneer Farmer Interns: 7
Source:

George Washington's Mt. Vernon Estate and Gardens (Mt. Vernon, Va.)

August 21, 2008Due to water shortages and rising fertilizer costs, 49 million acres of cropland were being treated with human sewage.
Source:

National Geographic News

May 24, 2008 Fertilizer-company representatives, flush from last year's 300 percent increase in the price of potash, gathered in Vienna at the orangery of a Hapsburg palace, where they were heralded by trumpeters in green robes. “For the last 35 years, nobody noticed,” said one fertilizer executive. “I've waited my whole career for this.”
Source:

Financial Post

May 31, 2007 Serb farmers were exchanging cows for penis-enlargement surgery.
Source:

Independent Online

March 29, 2007 China was considering using its vast harvest of rape to create biodiesel. “The government,” said Agriculture Ministry official Wang Shoucong, “should foster research work to nurture high-yield rape.”
Source:

PTI via Hindu

January 4, 2007A two-faced calf was born on a farm in Virginia. “Genetically, this is one of my better calves,” said its owner.
Source:

AP via Yahoo! News

November 27, 2006 South Korea's Agriculture Ministry announced plans to kill all the cats and dogs in Iksan, Korea. Minister Kim Chang-sup defended the action, undertaken in response to an outbreak of avian flu, by saying, “Other countries do it. They just don't talk about it.”
Source:

New York Times

November 2, 2006 Corn farmers in the Midwest were resisting bids for their ethanol plants by Wall Street firms.
Source:

New York Times

March 31, 2006Three quarters of Africa's farmland lacked the basic nutrients needed to grow crops. "We must," said Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, "feed our soils."
Source:

The New York Times

February 23, 2006People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals criticized a teacher in Rosamond, California, for castrating a live pig in front of a high school group; a school superintendent countered that animal castration is an important skill for students to learn.
Source:

LA Daily News

February 2, 2006A study found that the mineral content of meat and milk has dropped over the last 60 years due to intensive farming. The average rump steak, for instance, has only 45 percent as much iron as it did in 1940.
Source:

The Guardian via Common Dreams.

August 10, 2005 Cream puffs with 560 calories and 47 grams of fat were selling briskly at the Wisconsin State Fair.
Source:

AZCentral.com

July 28, 2005 President Bush's favorite dirty joke was reported to be: “The only time I ever hit two good balls is when I step on a rake.”
Source:

The Fix

April 25, 2005 Israeli settlers were accused of spreading rat poison over the fields of Palestinian farmers.
Source:

BBC News

April 6, 2005 Geneticists bred blue roses.
Source:

Biology News Net

April 3, 2005In France, radical wine producers threw sticks of dynamite at a state agriculture office and demanded that the state take action to stop the depression in French wine prices.
Source:

Wine International

March 16, 2005The Department of Homeland Security was preparing for: the detonation of a ten-kiloton nuclear device; a biological attack with aerosolized anthrax; an outbreak of pneumonic plague; a flu pandemic starting in south China; the spraying of a chemical blister agent over a football stadium; an attack on an oil refinery; the explosion of a tank of chlorine; a 7.2-magnitude earthquake; a major hurricane in a metropolitan area; three Cesium-137 dirty bombs going off in three different cities, each contaminating thirty-six city blocks; the detonation of improvised bombs in sports stadiums and eme