This is taken in the wheat field by our house, summer 2010
- Farmer's receive about 4 cents of the cost of a loaf of bread sold at retail.
- A single bushel of wheat (about 1 million kernels) will make 73 loaves of bread, 53 boxes of cereal or 72 pounds of tortillas.
- An acre of wheat can produce enough wheat to furnish a family with bread for nearly 10 years.
- It takes a combine nine seconds to harvest enough wheat to make 70 loaves of bread.
- The United States uses over 3 million bushels of wheat each day.
- Wheat was first planted in the United States in 1777 as a hobby crop.
(Wheat Marketing Center and Idaho Wheat Commission Statistics, as seen in Capitol Press).
4 comments:
Hey Alysun - Do you know how much a farmer gets for a 5# bag of flour? I heard an unreferenced statistic once that the closer you buy the crop to its original harvest state, the more money gets back to the farmer for his crop. So, for example, if you buy flour instead of bread, the farmer would end up getting $0.10 for the same amount of wheat as is used in the pre-made bread. Do you have any idea if this is true?
Melanie,
Your statistic is right. The closer you get to buying direct from the farmer, the more profitable it is for the farmer. For example, we sell ground whole wheat flour for $1 per pound.
long live the hard working farmer!(and his family:)Buy freshly ground flour.
Nick read that to me this last week too. Interesting facts. :) I liked looking at the map showing what areas of the US grew what varieties of wheat
~Jayne
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