This week, let’s discover some interesting facts on farming that might be new to you. As always, if you have any ideas for a column, please let me know.
Canada is the world’s largest exporter of pulses (beans, peas, chickpeas, lentils). Pulse crops contain nutrients found in both the vegetable and meat food groups, including significant protein, fibre, folate, iron, and other minerals.
Just over half of Canada’s vegetable crop is grown for processing. The top five crops are sweet corn, green peas, carrots, beans, and tomatoes.
Apples, blueberries, and grapes make up over 80 per cent of Canada’s fruit acreage.
Did you know that more than half a billion dozen eggs are sold in Canada each year? That is more than seven billion eggs. How many eggs have you eaten this week?
There are about 283 days (9.5 months) for the gestation period of cows.
Eleven top quality leather basketballs can be made from one cowhide.
Pigs live in barns specially designed with fans or ‘curtain-sided barns’ that can open if needed to help control humidity and temperatures. To keep the animals disease-free, most barns have strict sanitation standards and animal health rules.
Sows are female pigs that usually birth eight to 12 piglets in a litter and give birth (farrow) twice a year.
Of the 10,000 items in a typical grocery store, at least 2,500 items use corn in some form during the processing or processing stage.
Green peas have three times more fibre, 40 per cent more iron, and 25 per cent more vitamin A and C than green beans.
When Ontario’s egg producers voted in 1972 to bring in a marketing plan for their commodity they were selling eggs at 21 cents/dozen while those same eggs were costing the farmers around 34 cents/dozen to produce.
Four companies control 44 per cent of all global restaurant sales. They are McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King and Tricon Global Restaurants, which owns Pizza Hut, KFC and Taco Bell.
Only three per cent of the earth’s surface can be used to grow food crops.
One dairy cow drinks the equivalent of a bathtub of water every day.
The many fields of corn in our area are beneficial to our environment. They have large leaf areas that absorb lots of carbon dioxide and release oxygen during the entire growing period.
McCain Foods, with headquarters in Florenceville, New Brunswick, produces one out of every three French fries consumed in the entire world.
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Think about this – A true relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
Remember that here in Chatham-Kent ‘WE GROW FOR THE WORLD’. Check out our community’s agricultural website at:www.wegrowfortheworld.com
Kim Cooper has been involved in the agribusiness sector for over 45 years. He can be reached at: kim.e.cooper@gmail.com
You can also follow him on Twitter at ‘theAGguy’
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