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It is often too easy to take what we have for granted. When was the last time you thought about all of the steps that went into producing the food on your dinner table? And when was the last time you considered all of the hard work that went into making the textiles for your clothes?

Our food and fiber does not just land on the store shelves or magically appear in our refrigerators and closets. Rather, they are the fruits of the labor of our nation’s farmers.

Farmers produce the essentials in life – from food to clothes to pharmaceuticals to fuels. That is why I was proud to spend the past two weeks traveling the Fifth District and listening to the concerns of our local farmers. As someone who grew up milking a cow and raising row crops, I know firsthand what a difficult job they have. Farmers play a very important role in our community and they deserve our gratitude.

We are very lucky to live in a society that has had no experience with true food scarcity. Our supermarkets are always full and our food is affordable compared to the rest of the world. American consumers spend only ten percent of their annual incomes on groceries, which is the lowest percentage in the world. Back in 1950, Americans spent 22 percent of their incomes on food. And in 1935, a typical farm family in North Carolina spent 47 percent of their wages on provisions.

What is amazing about all of this is that barely two percent of Americans are farmers. Compare that to when our country was first founded. In colonial times, over 90 percent of the population was rural and a majority of people were farmers. I am amazed by how efficient our agriculture industry has become.

We have a lot to be thankful for in North Carolina, especially in the Fifth District. We live in the nation’s third most productive state in diversified agriculture. In Western North Carolina, we grow just about everything from traditional crops like cotton and soybeans to specialty crops like grapes, sweet potatoes and tobacco. Poultry and cattle farming are also major industries in our area. We are the second largest producer of Christmas trees in the nation as well as the second largest producer of mountain trout.

Together agriculture and agribusiness generate about $62.6 billion in revenue each year for our state. The industry creates one in five jobs in North Carolina, accounts for 22 percent of our state’s income and contributes more than 20 percent to the gross state product.

Editor’s Note: Virginia Foxx serves on the Agriculture Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, where she represents North Carolina’s Fifth District. You may contact her office toll free at 1-866-677-8968 or e-mail her from her website, www.house.gov/foxx.

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