Ag Facts

• Over the 1998 to 2001 period, growth in Internet use among people living in rural households has been at an average annual rate of 24 percent, and the percentage of Internet users in rural areas (53 percent) is now almost even with the national average (54 percent).
  
  Forty-five percent of the population now uses e-mail, up from 35 percent. About one-third of Americans used the Internet to search for product and service information (36 percent, up from 26 percent in 2000).
  
  (Source: A Nation Online: How Americans Are Expanding Their Use of the Internet, The US Department of Commerce, http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/dn/nationonline_020502.htm)

• In 1996, only a few million acres of biotech crops were planted. For 2001, that number is projected to reach 100 million.
  
  (Source: www. cropsci.uiuc.edu)

• "Surveys of Illinois farmers indicate that 7,000 farmers have started producing value-enhanced crops since 1998, making the total number of producers 16,800, and acreage has expanded per average farmer from 200 acres to 400 acres during that period."
  
  (Source: "Value-Enhanced Corn and Soybean Production in Illinois", University of Illinois, 2002)