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Ag Literacy Lines

A blog featuring fun information on agriculture for youth and adults.

November 24, 2010

Where Does Thanksgiving Dinner Grow

Do you know where your Thanksgiving dinner was grown? What states grow the most green beans? How about those turkeys? Thanks to Linda Zellmer, Government Information and Data Services Librarian at Western Illinois University, we can find out. She has used data from the 2007 Census of Agriculture and a geographic information system to develop a set of maps showing where the foods consumed at the traditional Thanksgiving dinner, such as turkey, cranberries, squash, and green beans, are grown. A comprehensive poster including all of the maps shows where all of the Thanksgiving foods are grown in the United States. The maps and posters based on data from the 1997, 2002 and 2007 Census of Agriculture are available on her web site at:
http://faculty.wiu.edu/LR-Zellmer/thanksgiving.html.

The comprehensive poster titled "Where does Thanksgiving Dinner Grow?" is available at:
http://faculty.wiu.edu/LR-Zellmer/thanksgiving/2007/Turkey07Poster.pdf.

Have a great Thanksgiving!!!

Posted by Aimee Chandler at 12:32 PM | Permalink |

November 12, 2010

Where Does My Milk Come From?

Have you ever wondered how far your milk and other dairy products had to travel to get to your local grocery store? Now you can find out. Just visit www.whereismymilkfrom.com. Stamped on the container near the sell by date you will find another set of numbers. This is the plant number. You can enter this information into the locator on the website and find out where that milk or container of yogurt or ice cream came from.

For example I bought a half gallon of milk this week from a local grocery store. The code on it says 17-255. When I type that into the location finder I see that it came from the Prairie Farms Dairy in Olney, Illinois. You can also see what other products they produce there.

How far did your dairy products come?

Posted by Aimee Chandler at 2:24 PM | Permalink |