Image Credit: Missouri Dept of Ag

About the time this blog posts, I’ll be at the airport in Nashville, waiting on a Southwest Airlines flight to Kansas City, Missouri for the 2012 Agvocacy 2.0 Conference presented by the AgChat Foundation. This is a great meeting held to train farmers, ranchers, and others how to better utilize Social Media and online tools to reach out to non-farm audiences. Last year’s conference was held in Nashville, TN.

As with many previous trips, I like to share many facts about agriculture from the state where I am traveling. On this blog before I have shared AgFacts from Arkansas, Kentucky, New Mexico, and Tennessee. Of course, I have AgFacts from almost every state on my project page.

With a quick search from the Missouri Agriculture in the Classroom website, I found these cool facts about Agriculture in Missouri:

Missouri Weather and Climate…

  • Has a wide range of climates depending on the region of the state.
  • Average annual temperatures range from 50 degrees in the NW to 60 degrees in the SE.
  • Average statewide rainfall is 35 inches and Spring is tornado season in Missouri.
  • Menfro is the official Missouri State Soil, which occurs in about 780,000 acres in Missouri.

Missouri Crops…

  • Corn, soybeans, cattle and calves, hogs, and turkeys are Missouri’s top crops.
  • Missouri ranked nationally 5th in rice, 6th in soybeans and cotton, 8th in grain sorghum and 9th in corn production in 2009.
  • The Bootheel (SE MO) is the most intensively cropped area.
  • Cotton and rice are grown in South East Missouri.
  • Missouri produces a variety of fruits, vegetables and specialty crops.
  • According to the 2007 Census of Agriculture, 47% of Missouri’s total agricultural receipts came from crops.
  • Livestock production accounted for 53% of the state’s agricultural receipts.

    Image credit: Wikipedia

Missouri according to the 2007 Census of Agriculture…

  • Ranks 2nd in number of farms.
  • Had $7.51 billion value of agricultural products sold.
  • Ranks 14th in total value of agricultural products sold.
  • Ranks 15th in farm exports.
  • Farmland accounts for 66% of the state’s total land use.

Food and Agriculture holds a strong tie to the history of Kansas City, including one of the largest livestock events in the country, the American Royal, and world renowned BBQ. I can’t wait to get there and learn more about it.

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