published: Thursday, November 20, 2008

Remember the work and sweat behind the potatoes and gravy

Tuesday night the Sebring City Council issued a proclamation in honor of National Farm-City Week.

As we prepare for Thanksgiving, and next week sit down to enjoy a special dinner with family and friends, we strongly agree it is the appropriate time to remember how the food arrived on our plates, and to honor the many different people who get it there.

As the City of Sebring points out, it takes, "... more than 24 million workers including farmers and ranchers, shippers, processors, marketers, retailers, truck drivers, inspectors and others who annually contribute more than $1.3 trillion to our gross national product ..." to get the job done.

What is awe inspiring, however, is how much agricultural product this network of individuals -- from the muddy farm workers, to the processors in sterilized coveralls, to the commodities brokers in suits and ties -- produce.

For example, according to the Agricultural Council of America, one-fourth of the world's beef and nearly one-fifth of the world's grain, milk and eggs are produced in the U.S.

For every hour, the U.S. exports $6 million worth of agricultural products.

Agriculture generates 20 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product.

With modern methods, one acre of land in the U.S. (about the size of a football field) can produce: 42,000 pounds of strawberries, 11,000 heads of lettuce, 25,400 pounds of potatoes, 8,900 pounds of sweet corn, or 640 pounds of cotton lint.

Nearly 19 billion pounds of pork -- the most widely eaten meat -- were processed in 2001.

The numbers boggle the mind. The labor and team work involved in producing those vast amounts is difficult to imagine.

As the Sebring proclamation states, the: "... successful cooperation between farmers and city workers will continue to play a vital role in our nation's future.

"We commend the many Americans whose hard work and ingenuity reflect the true spirit of America (and) count among our blessings the vital farm-city partnerships that have done so much to improve the quality of our lives."

As Sebring's Mayor George Hensley said when announcing the proclamation, "I'm very grateful to the agricultural industry every time I go into a grocery store. If you're going to complain about high prices, don't talk with your mouth full."