AGRICULTURE

Farming accounts for less than 2 percent of annual GDP and employs fewer than 3 percent of U.S. workers. Yet the nation leads the world in many aspects of agricultural production. Farmers not only produce enough to meet domestic needs, they also produce enough to enable the United States to export more farm products per year than any other nation in the world.

Beef cattle rank as the most valuable product of the nation’s farms, accounting for one-fifth of total annual farm receipts. Many of the cattle are raised on large ranches in southwestern states. Texas produces more beef cattle than any other state, and states such as Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Iowa also raise many cattle. Dairy products represent about 11 percent of the yearly value of farm marketings and are the second most valuable item coming from American farms. California, Wisconsin, New York, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota are leading dairy states. Hogs and broiler chickens are other major livestock raised on U.S. farms. In terms of market value, 68 percent of the hogs are produced in Iowa, North Carolina, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Indiana. The states of Arkansas, Georgia, Alabama, and North Carolina account for more than one-half of U.S. broiler chicken output. Other major livestock and livestock products include chicken eggs, turkeys, and sheep and lambs.

Leading agricultural crops are corn, soybeans, vegetables, fruits and nuts, greenhouse and nursery products, wheat, cotton, and tobacco. Soybeans are grown primarily in the Midwest, especially in Iowa and Illinois; during the 1970s the cultivation of soybeans expanded rapidly into the lower Mississippi Valley and other parts of the South. Corn is a major crop in many parts of the United States, but most is produced in the Midwest, where it is the main feed for the cattle and hogs raised there. Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Indiana together produce about two-thirds of the annual U.S. corn crop.

Wheat is another important U.S. crop. Kansas usually leads all states in yearly wheat production. North Dakota, Montana, Oklahoma, Washington, Idaho, South Dakota, Colorado, Texas, Minnesota, and Nebraska also are major wheat producers. For more than a century and a half, cotton was the predominant cash crop in the South. Today, however, it is no longer important in some of the traditional cotton-growing areas east of the Mississippi River. Cotton growing is now concentrated in relatively flat areas amenable to large-scale mechanization, such as the lower Mississippi Valley, the plains of Texas, and the valleys of California and Arizona. Texas usually produces about one-quarter and California about one-sixth of the nation’s annual cotton harvest. Tobacco remains an important cash crop. The leading tobacco-producing states are North Carolina, which accounts for more than one-third of the national output, and Kentucky, which annually produces more than one-fourth.

Other leading crops include peanuts, peaches, tomatoes, and apples. More than three-quarters of the oranges are produced in Florida; California grows nearly one-half of the nation’s fresh vegetables; roughly one-third of the potatoes are grown in Idaho and one-fifth in Washington; some five-sixths of the grapes are raised in California; and about half of the commercial apples come from orchards in Washington. Additional major crops grown on U.S. farms are sugarcane, rice, sorghum grain, dry beans, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, celery, cucumbers, lettuce, onions, green peppers, mushrooms, cantaloupes, and watermelon. Other valuable fruit crops include cherries, pears, plums and prunes, and strawberries. Major nut crops include almonds, pecans, and walnuts.

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 1062