Friday Food Facts

Like Yuma and other Arizona counties, Pinal County does an amazing job with water, soil, and farming. Each one of the more than 900 farms in this county produces on average $1 million in farm production, bringing nearly a billion dollars into our local economy. If you count both on and off-farm sales, the figure is $2.2 billion in economic activity

Go to any Arizona grocery store and you’ll be surrounded by local food. You can find it in the dairy, meat and egg case and the produce aisle. In fact, 53% of the beef in the meat case comes from Arizona ranches like mine.

Farming, Fishing, Forestry, and Mining are every economy’s most important sectors. Without them, other industries cannot exist. Arizona agriculture is a 23-billion-dollar industry. We need farming and ranching and that’s why I’m proud to be an Arizona rancher.

Right now, Yuma farmers are producing so many fresh leafy greens, they’re supplying about 130 million servings to the U.S. and Canada every single day. Annually, when you add California that translates to 50 billion servings for our two countries.

The U.S. supplies 25% of the world’s beef with 10% of the world’s cattle. Some of Arizona’s ranchers are 5^th– and 6^th-generation ranch families. Put some steaks on the grill this weekend.