Nearly four centuries after the very first Thanksgiving feast, Americans sitting down with their families can still taste the role agriculture plays in the holiday – and the even bigger role it plays in their lives.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), U.S. farmers will raise 254 million turkeys, and harvest 768 million pounds of cranberries and 47 billion pounds of potatoes this year. The most recent NASS data reports that producers also grew 1.1 billion pounds of pumpkins and 1.9 billion pounds of green beans to provide many sides dishes this Thanksgiving. Compare that with the menu that history tells us Thanksgiving consisted of in 1621 — a handful of wild turkeys and geese, along with a few baskets of assorted beans, corn and pumpkins grown by pilgrims and Native Americans. Read more.
