The leading industry of North Dakota is agriculture. About 30,000 farms and ranches are located in the state. North Dakota’s total land area is about 44.1 million (44,100,000) acres. An acre is approximately the size of a football field. Farms and ranches take up about 39.6 million (39,600,000) acres. This means that about 90 percent of the total land area of the state is made up of farms and ranches.
Did You Know?
Each year, North Dakota farmers and ranchers produce enough:
- Wheat for 11.6 billion (11,600,000,000) loaves of bread.
- Soybeans for 212 billion (212,000,000,000) crayons.
- Potatoes for 2.6 billion (2,600,000,000) servings of French fries.
- Durum for 14 billion (14,000,000,000) servings of spaghetti.
- Sunflowers for 1.4 million (1,400,000,000) bags of sunflower seeds.
- Beef for 103 million (103,000,000) hamburgers.
- Milk for 625 million (625,000,000) glasses of milk.
- Pork for 1.2 million (1,200,000) pork chops.
- Corn for 690 million (690,000,000) gallons of ethanol fuel.
- Wool for 570,000 sweaters.
- Sugarbeets to make 1.9 billion pounds of sugar.
- Alfalfa to feed 529,000 cows for one year.
- Canola to fill the North Dakota Capitol building more than 16 times.