In 1988, an American farmer provided for for 114 people. In 1950, the average producer fed 24 people.
Americans spend 13% of after-tax income on food, including food consumed away from the home. This compares with 23% spent for food in 1951. It also compares with 30% in the 30% in the Soviet Union, 18% in Japan, 23% in Germany, 35% in Equador and 65% in China.
Without the use of agricultural chemicals the world food supply would be reduced by 40-5-% and the cost of food would increase by 50-75%. Shortage and lower quality food and fiber would be common.
Development of new pesticides requires eight years of time and investments of up to $35 million. This is only research cost, it does not include manufacturing expenses.
Huff-Daland Dusters, Inc. was the first commercial aerial application company; they built their own special dusting aircraft. Later this company became known as Delta Air Service, the forerunner of Delta Airlines.
Many ag planes have smokers installed. These devices are used to emit smoke from the aircraft so that the pilot can check wind direction.
The frozen vegetable that Americans spend most money on is the French fried potato.
Water weighs 8.33 pounds per gallon. There are 128 ounces on one gallon of liquid. Many aerially applied liquid products are dispersed at the rate of one gallon (total volume) per acre, and there are some solutions applied at 8 ounces or less per acre!
An aircraft with one set of wings is called a monoplane, where as an aircraft with two sets of wings is referred to as a biplane.
Total American agricultural production is currently more than two times greater than it was in the 1930’s even though the production acreage of arable land has not increased substantially since then.
The advances in the chemical age of farming have made possible more progress in food and fiber production during the last 35 years than occurred in all previous years of man history.
Agronomists identify about 2,600 species of weeds, of which 800 are known to cause economic loss to crops.
Ninety percent of all rice grown in the U.S. is seeded by air, over 2.5 million acres a year! Approximately 100 acres per hour can be seeded by ag aircraft.
An independent health survey of ag aviation recently investigated the possible effects of pesticide exposure on reproductive mortality and morbidity. The study included 347 males/females in ag aviation and 279 males/females in brother/sister families of ag aviators. There were no significant differences in number of pregnancies, live births, miscarriages or birth defects. In fact the incidences of mortalities and morbidities were slightly higher in the population which was not repetitively exposed to agri-chemicals.
Over 35,000 people die of starvation everyday according to the World Health Organization, 1 billion suffer from the illnesses caused by malnutrition.
An analytical chemist measures one substance within another. The detection ability increased a million-fold from 1950, when the detection ability was at one part per quadrillion.
For reference:
1 part per million (1 ppm) is equivalent to 1 inch to 16 miles
1 part per billion (1 ppb) is equivalent to 1 aspirin dissolved in 100,000 gallons of water
1 part per trillion (1 ppt) is equivalent to the weight of 1 flea on 360,000 elephants
The application of pesticides at the rate of one pound per acre is the equivalent of spreading one teaspoon of sugar evenly over 5,000 bowls of cereal.
Reprint permission given by AgAir Update, P.O. Box 850, Perry, GA 31069 - an international agricultural aviation publication.
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