Agriculture on Valentine's Day

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In America, Valentine’s day is one of the biggest holidays for agriculture. We search and search for that perfect gift for our significant others. Kids look for the best Valentine cards and candy to exchange. If you read Holiday Horticulture or my post about Christmas Trees you know how much agriculture can impact a holiday. With all the chocolates, wine, flowers, and greeting cards Valentine’s day is one of the biggest days for agriculture. According to the NFR, last year Americans spent over $18 billion on Valentine’s day gifts. An average of $1.7 billion is spent on candy, over $8 million on wine, $2 billion on flowers, and $1 billion on cards. Now that we’ve got those statistics, lets dig in to those fun facts!

Chocolates and Candies

Americans spend a lot on candy each year, for many different occasions. Valentine’s candy though, is my favorite. Anyone else like those cordial cherries? Or how about conversation hearts? All candy is full of agricultural influence. Basic ingredients like milk, sugar and cocoa have to come from somewhere, don’t they? But Valentine’s candy is filled with all kinds of crazy stuff: cherries, fruit flavored cremes, peanuts, almonds, coconut. The list goes on and on.

Hawaii is the largest cocoa producer in the U.S.
One cocoa tree produces ~1000 cocoa beans in a year. That’s only enough for about 2 pounds of chocolate!
The hulls of cocoa beans are used to make mulch. How’s that for zero waste?
Sugarcane is the world’s largest crop and represents for 75-80% of worldwide sugar production
1 ounce of peanuts can be produced with less than 5 gallons of water, while 1 ounce of almonds takes 80 gallons of water to produce.
A coconut is actually a stone fruit
There are over 1300 types of coconut
During WWII coconut water was allegedly used as an IV drip because there was a shortage of blood plasma
Oregon and California grow 94% of the U.S.’s sweet cherries
There are over 1000 different varieties of cherries but only about 20 are commercially produced
The average cherry tree produces 7000 cherries and farmers use a mechanical shaker to shake the tree and harvest the cherries.
Turkey is the world’s largest cherry producer

Wine

Wine is a beverage enjoyed by people all around the world. Along with California and Washington, Texas is one of the top 10 wine producing states in the U.S. Wine is a huge part of the agriculture industry, and out of the products we discuss today probably brings in the most profit year round.

The world’s oldest bottle of wine is over 1600 years old
Prince Charles had an Astin Martin that was modified to run on biofuel made out of wine
Red wine goes well with red meats, while white wine goes well with white meats
Wine drinkers pour about 9% more into a glass if the wine is white and not red
Grapes are the highest value fruit crop in the U.S.
It takes anywhere from 300-900 grapes to make 5 glasses of wine

Flowers

The most common flowers bought on Valentine’s day are roses. Lately on the radio I’ve been hearing commercials for rose sales. Nowadays, you can get roses in tons of different colors rather than just red, yellow, white, and pink. No wonder they’re the most common flower bought for Valentine’s day. Whether you buy your special someone roses, carnations, tulips, or lilies, over half of the U.S. population buys flowers for this special day.

Over 250 million roses are grown specifically for Valentine’s Day in the U.S.
In Denmark, the flower to exchange on this day is a white snowdrop
The roses you buy for Valentine’s are most likely hybrid! Find out more here.
Violets are the birth flower for February- find out your birth flower here!
Knowing the source of flowers has become increasingly important to consumers. Many flowers are imported, but California is the leading U.S. producer of cut flowers.
Mother’s Day is the only day that beats Valentine’s Day in flower sales

Greeting Cards

Okay you may be thinking this is a long shot as far as relating cards to agriculture, but it’s not that bad. You may be thinking the obvious: cards are made of paper, paper is made from trees. Guess what though, more and more people are concerned about sustainability and reduced waste. Greeting cards are made from all kinds of materials now, including: seed paper, post-consumer recycled paper, up-cycled fabric, bamboo, and many others. The reasons bamboo is considered sustainable are so abundant I could write a whole post on it! (The basics are it is fast growing, self-regenerative, and needs no fertilizer; let me know in the comments below if you’re interested in a bamboo post) Let’s learn more about these cards.

Over 150 million greeting cards are exchanged on Valentine’s Day
Hallmark produces of 1400 varieties of Valentines cards
Seed paper is a growing trend where the paper is 100% compostable, and seeds are pressed into it. This means you can plant your card and grow some beautiful flowers!
Again, Valentine’s Day is the second largest holiday for greeting cards falling behind only Mother’s Day (not counting kids’ cards)
Women receive half of all Valentines
North America is one of the world’s largest paper consumers-in turn making us the highest greeting card buyers
In 1916 the USDA actually performed a study that found that an acre of hemp produced 4 times the amount of paper an acre of trees can, but this was never acted upon

Can you imagine this day without agriculture? We would have no flowers, no special cards, no wine, and no candy!! That would be unbearable, even for those who don’t celebrate this day. So now, when you buy a Valentine’s Day gift, think about how you’re supporting ag.

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Sources

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