Agriculture Facts

There are more than 150 million sheep in Australia, and only some 20 million people.

Research indicates that plants grow healthier when they are stroked.

The most expensive cow in the world was sold $1.3 million.

George Washington grew hemp in his garden at Mount Vernon for making rope and textiles.

Ants began farming about 50 million years before humans thought to raise their own crops.

Most domestic turkeys are so heavy they are unable to fly.

To find out if a watermelon is ripe, knock it, and if it sounds hollow then it is ripe.

203 million dollars is spent on barbed wire each year in the U.S.

Denmark has twice as many pigs as there are people.

Roughly 80-90% of pumpkins sold in the United States are bought purely for decoration, not eating.

It takes an average of 100 gallons of water to produce just one pound of food, with some crops requiring far more—a single pound of beef needs nearly 1,800 gallons.

Stilts were invented by French shepherds who needed a way to get around in wet marshes.

Pumpkin storage rule: the harder the shell, the longer the pumpkin lasts. A hard shell indicates full maturity—and darker orange color is often (but not always) a sign of that maturity.

Roosters can't crow if they can't fully extend their necks.

Sheep outnumber humans in New Zealand 15 to 1.

Each year 96 billion pounds of food is wasted in the U.S.

All coffee is grown within the Coffee Belt, a band extending roughly 2,500 miles north and south of the equator.

If China imported just 10% of it's rice needs- the price on the world market would increase by 80%.

A coffee tree yields about one pound of coffee in a year.

At its peak in the late 1990s, one out of every 11 workers in North Carolina depended on tobacco for their livelihood, making it the backbone of the state's agricultural economy.

Carrots were originally purple, white, and yellow. Orange carrots emerged in 17th-century Netherlands through selective breeding by Dutch growers—possibly as a tribute to William of Orange, though this patriotic origin story may be more legend than fact.

The most expensive cow in the world was sold in 2009 for $1.2 million.

Some farmers in Kenya are using elephants' natural fear of bees and building "beehive fences" that keep wild elephants from trampling the crops. It keeps the farms safe, and prevents farmers from having to kill elephants to defend their livelihood!

It takes about 12 bees their entire lifetime to produce just one teaspoon of honey.