April/May 1997
Prairie Ramblings
By Tracy Sayler
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Prairie Grains is the
official publication of
the Minnesota
Association of
Wheat Growers,
North Dakota Grain
Growers Association,
South Dakota Wheat,
Inc., and the
Minnesota Barley
Growers Association.
How many people fed from an acre of wheat?
I hate math. Just as composing sentences triggers cerebral numbness in most accountants and statisticians, wordsmiths don't do well with numbers. Ask wordy people to figure out an algebra equation, and we'll respond by assuming the fetal position. Do the math in your head, you say? Unfathomable. Although we still don't know what the little "M" means on a pocket calculator (if the "M" inadvertently comes up on the calculator display, we just press the clear button repeatedly until it disappears) number dunces rely on these little gifts from a right-brained God for all our number crunching.
I broke out my solar-powered wonder recently to calculate an answer to an intriguing wheat-related e-mail question: How many people can be fed by an acre of wheat?
Here's what I came up with: From a 60-pound bushel of wheat, a flour mill can grind about 40 pounds of flour, which will then yield 42 loaves of bread. An average wheat yield of 35 bushels per acre would thus produce 1,470 loaves of bread. The average one-and-a-half pound loaf has 24 slices. One slice of bread equals one serving from the grains group of the USDA's Food Guide Pyramid. The average American eats about four servings daily from the grains group (6 to 11 servings are recommended, however). On average, then, a loaf would feed six people. Thus, an acre of wheat produces enough bread to feed 8,820 people daily!
Assuming my calculations are correct, this really puts production into heady perspective. Just think, every acre of wheat you plant this spring will crank out enough bread to feed a city the size of Crookston, MN or Valley City, ND daily (two days for Mobridge, SD). A 20-acre wheat field would feed Fargo, Moorhead, Grand Forks, and East Grand Forks for a day. North Dakota at about 10 million wheat acres would make enough bread to feed everyone in the world, close to 6 billion people, for about two weeks.
Clearing cemeteries in China for farmland
One acre of land, which is roughly the size of a football field, can produce: 24,000 heads of lettuce; 45,500 pounds of strawberries; 36,000 pounds of potatoes; 28,800 pounds of navel oranges; 1,328 pounds of cotton; or 14,000 pounds of sweet corn, according to the California Ag Statistics Service. No doubt about it, society can take its farmland for granted. In fact, according to the broadcast gospel of Paul "have-you-listened-to-the-Bose-acoustic-wave-lately? Why, it's-candy-for-the-ears!" Harvey, they're clearing cemeteries in China to make way for farmland. This, of course, brings a whole new meaning to the common field preparation practice of picking rocks. (You're right. That last sentence was both tacky and insensitive. So at this time, I'd like to apologize to all the dead people out there reading this.)
Farmland loss growing concern
Seriously though, the loss of farmland is becoming a real concern in populated areas, even in this country. One million acres are giving way to development every year, according to the non-profit American Farmland Trust. Between 1982 and 1992, 4.3 million acres of farmland were overrun by urban sprawl, at a rate of nearly 50 acres an hour, according to a recent AFT report, which also said that 79 percent of the nation's fruits, 69 percent of its vegetables and 52 percent of its dairy goods are now produced on prime farmland threatened by sprawling growth.
Urban sprawl affecting NAWG president
Phil McLean, president of the National Association of Wheat Growers, farms near Statesville, N.C., which is within an hour of Charlotte. He grows wheat, barley, corn, soybeans, and cotton on land that is sectioned into small fields - five-to-ten acres in size - and all of it highly erodible. McLean lost 240 acres of rented land to development last year. For McLean and other area farmers, urban sprawl means no aerial crop spraying, complaints about farm equipment running at night, and land prices that can stretch from $1,800 an acre for cropland to upwards of $20,000 to $30,000 an acre for land strategically placed for industrial development. "I don't think I'll be able to farm where I'm at in the future. I think housing will take over," says McLean. "If we want to continue, we'll probably have to look somewhere else, especially if one of my three sons wants to farm."
Apple demo puts farmland into perspective
Ohio ag educators came up with a unique classroom demonstration that puts the amount of farmland we have around the world into perspective. The procedures:
- Cut a large apple into four equal parts. Three-fourths of the apple represents the oceans that cover our planet. The remaining quarter piece represents the land area.
- Next, cut the land section in half lengthwise, making two 1/8 sections. One represents the deserts, swamps, mountains, Arctic and Antarctic regions. The remaining 1/8 section of apple symbolize the land where people can live and may be able to grow food.
- Cut the remaining 1/8 section into four pieces. Three of those pieces represent land that is too rocky, too wet, too hot, or developed by people.
- Finally, peel the last small piece of apple - 1/32 of the world. That tiny bit of peel represents the soil which we all depend on for food production.