A World Perspective for

us all! Superpower

in Food Markets

The United States has long been a superpower in food markets – and it is still the world's largest food exporter.  U.S., China and India each produce more food than the entire European Union.. Russia, the largest country in the world and home to the ninth-largest population, is partially a victim of its own harsh northern climate. A huge percentage of the Russian territory is neither farmable nor pasturable. Russia also has a history of low-output farms. #USA#FRUITLOGISTICA19#FOOD

Source www.investopedia.com

Largest Single Employer! 500

Million Small Farms

Worldwide

Agriculture is the single largest employer in the world, providing livelihoods for 40% of today’s global population. 500 million small farms worldwide, most still rainfed, provide up to 80% of food consumed in a large part of the developing world!

Source: United Nations

USA Farm Production in 2016

99% / 45%

Family Farms

In 2016, 99 percent of U.S. farms were family farms, where the principal operator and his or her relatives owned the majority of the business. Large-scale family farms—those with $1 million or more in GCFI (gross cash farm income) made up only 3 percent of U.S. farms and 18 percent of farmland, but contributed 45 percent of the production.

Source: USDA

Water and Agriculture in the 

USA / 90% in 17 Western States

​

Agriculture is a major user of ground and surface water in the United States, accounting for approximately 80 percent of the Nation's consumptive water use and over 90 percent in 17 Western States. Five States—California, Nebraska, Texas, Arkansas, and Idaho—accounted for 52 percent of total irrigated acreage.

Source: www.water.usgs.gov

USA has 3142

Counties / 97%

of the Nation's

land area

USA Rural areas cover 97% of the nation’s land area but contain 19.3 percent of the population (about 60 million people),” US Census. As the nation’s largest household survey, the American Community Survey is the only annual dataset that produces this range of statistics for all of the nation’s 3,142 counties.

Farming / Rural areas are victims of broadband market dynamics!

Rural and farming areas contain a disproportionate share of the neighborhoods in the U.S. without access to broadband. In 2015, these communities accounted for 15 percent of the nation’s total population but made up 57% of the nation’s residents living in neighborhoods without broadband. 

New generations will make the difference / 20% 

and 30%
 

The millennial generation (people aged 34 and under) includes 257,454 farmers. More than 20 percent of all farmers are beginning farmers (in business less than 10 years) and women make up 30 percent (969,672) of the total number of U.S. farm operators. Source: https://www.fb.org/ - Farm Bureau

What is the Food and AG Industries Impack in your community?

America’s food and agriculture sectors feed the economy and fuel the nation. Together, they account for roughly one-fifth of the country’s economic activity, nearly 15% of US employment

Meanwhile, millions of food scientists, grocers and truck-drivers work in more than 200,000 food manufacturing, processing, and storage facilities, to keep food fresh and deliver it on time.  

Farmers struggle

to separate

climate change adaptation

Actions from all the

management decisions they make in an ever-shifting agricultural world.

Farmers may have a closer relationship to weather and climate than many lay

people.

Farmer perceptions of climate change varied considerably and were not

systematically consistent with the direction and significance of climate trends calculated

from observational record, lending support to the idea that other personal

and

environmental factors

are important for determining perceptions.

Research

confirms what

we suspected!

Fresh is best!

82% of supply chain and merchandising executives from top grocery retailers in North

America rated fresh products as very important as today’s consumers are increasingly

demanding more fresh food products.

Research done between December 2017 and March 2018 - Growing and Sustaining

Competitive Advantage in Grocery Retail, also highlighted that spoilage is a large,​ margin-impacting challenge and, if unaddressed, will only get worse as the importance of fresh products increases.

Source:

Geographic Distribution of Hired Farmworkers (All Occupations)

Despite agriculture's rural nature, 61 percent of hired farmworkers reside in metro (urban) counties. This largely reflects the fact that most of the main farming areas in California, Arizona, and other Western States lie in large counties that also include major cities, and are hence defined as metropolitan. But significant numbers of farmworkers are also found in metro counties in the Great Lakes and in the South Atlantic. 
Source: Economic Research Service

Farmers do

More with less

from 19 people 

 to 155 people

In the 1940s, one U.S. farmer produced enough to feed 19 people. By the 2000s, that number had grown to 155.

Over 200 years ago, 90 percent of the U.S. population lived on farms and produced their own food to eat. But today, only two percent of the population produces food for the world to consume. Source: http://animalsmart.org/animals-and-the-environment/comparing-agriculture-of-the-past-with-today

The Decade of Family Farming Worldwide!

and the UNGA

The UN General Assembly has approved the Decade of Family Farming (2019-2028). It aims to draw attention to the people who produce more than 80 percent of the planet's food and, paradoxically, are often the most vulnerable to hunger. The resolution establishes that FAO and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) will be responsible for implementing it.

USA Leader in Poultry Farming and Exports 

Plus Eggs

The U.S. poultry industry is the world's largest producer and second largest exporter of poultry meat and a major egg producer.

Source:USDA

Net Farm

Income at 1990 Levels / fell

12% 

The USA Farm economy in 2018 was challenging. Net farm income fell 12% from 2017 to 2018 despite the market facilitation program (MFP) – 4.6 billion. Main cause is price drop in commodities – crop producers first, livestock thereafter - even with strong production numbers. It does not do much to produce more if prices drop as it becomes harder to generate profitability.

Source: Ageconomist

Top producing avocado regions

for USA consumption

 

From 2015 to 2017, California and Florida accounted for 86 percent and 13 percent of U.S. avocado production, respectively, while the west-central Mexican States of Michoacán and Jalisco accounted for 78 percent and 8 percent, respectively, of Mexican production. From 2015 to 2017, growers and shippers in Michoacán supplied about 72 percent of total deliveries (imports and domestic production) of fresh avocados in the United States; California supplied about 13 percent.

Source: https://www.ers.usda.gov

USA produces

50% of worldwide corn production and 20% beef

The United States produces about half of the world's corn and 10 percent of its wheat. It also

accounts for 20 percent of the globe's beef, pork, and lamb. Americans spend less on food, as a

proportion of their income, than any other nation in the world. U.S. consumers spent 10.9 percent

of their income on food. In comparison, the average British consumer spent 11.2 percent, the

French 14.8 percent, the Japanese 17.6 percent, and Indians spent 51.3 percent.

​

Source USDA

GPS helps to reduce carbon footprint  Farmers take action 

Precision technologies like GPS and auto-steer on tractors allow growers to farm the same amount of

land while using less fuel and fertilizer. This lowers the farmer’s carbon footprint, or the amount of

greenhouse gas emissions produced while farming.

​

​Source:

Challenges

$218 billion annually, on food that is never eaten!

Today the United States spends over $218 billion annually on food that is never eaten! This costs $74 billion

to American businesses and $144 billion to American consumers. Wasted food accounts for approximately

20% of land, water and fertilizer use and 8% of global GHG emissions,

and is the single largest material type in landfills.

Source: ReFED

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