Ag Facts

• The number of farms in the U.S. is 2.12 million farms, down from the 2.21 million farms in 1997.
• Farm size grew from an average 431 acres to 441 acres during the last five years with more than 939.5 million acres in the nation is farmland.
• There are 3.11 million farmers nationwide, including an increase in the number of blacks, American Indian, Hispanic and women operators since 1997.
• The average age of American agricultural producers in 2002 was 55.3-years-old.

  SOURCE: 2002 Census of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service, http://www.usda.gov/nass/

Scientists estimate that enough print, film, magnetic, and optical storage material were produced last year to fill the Library of Congress 500,000 times. That is equal to five exabytes (1018) of information. E-mails alone generated 400,000 terabytes of information. A terabyte is enough to fill up paper from 50,000 trees. Worldwide data production has increased 30 percent annually between 1999 and 2002.

SOURCE: How Much Information – 2003, Peter Laymand and Hal Varion, University of California, Berkeley, http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info-2003/