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.
