One of my favorite parts about looking at Stefan’s blog posts is checking out the map of the location of his photo. I am often in awe of the huge amount of farmland in Austria. Rhode Island is not exactly known for it’s agriculture, but it does play a part in daily life here. There are farmers markets all over the state, bumper stickers adorn cars saying “No Farms, No Food,” and there are some surprising facts about farming in the state which I will share here.
About 60,000 acres of land in Rhode Island is considered farmland–10% of the total area of the state.
Out of the 50 states, RI comes in at #49 in agricultural exports.
There are farms for cattle and other livestock, like the one pictured here, as well as dairy, produce, plant nurseries, honey, and even oysters–in fact, RI aquaculture farmers harvest over 8.2 million oysters each year.
There are 1,100 farms across RI out of the 1,214 square miles that make up the state. For a girl who’s lived most of her life in such a tiny place, that sounds like a lot. I wonder how other parts of the world compare?