• Products we use in our everyday lives come from plant and animal byproducts produced by America's farmers and ranchers.¹
• Heart valves from hogs are used to replace damaged or diseased human heart valves.¹
• Shampoo, cosmetics, lotions, finger nail polish, and toothpaste are made from agricultural commodities.¹
• The crayons, textbooks, chalk, desks, pencils, and paper in your classroom comes from agricultural products. ¹
• One bale of cotton can produce 1,217 men's t-shirts or 313,600 one-hundred dollar ($100) bills.¹

Agriculture is an important part of our lives, from what we wear to what we use in our classrooms and what we do after school. We may not always think of agricultural products as the physical source of the items or things we use every day. However, most of these daily essentials can be tracked back to an agricultural source.

Production agriculture, or farming, is what most people think of when they hear the word agriculture. This is the actual production or growing of raw commodities. People typically categorized as farmers and ranchers are people who raise and harvest crops and livestock for consumption or purchase. It doesn't stop there. Production agriculture also includes a wide variety of specialties such as raising fish, timber, fur-bearing animals, herbs, and much more.

Many of the products we use every day come from agriculture. The sheets we sleep on and the pajamas we wear are made from cotton, just like cotton swabs for your ears. The feathers in pillows may come from chickens or ducks. The cereal and milk we eat for breakfast, the pencils, crayons, and paper we use at school, and the baseballs, bats, and gloves we use after school all originate from raw agricultural products. We know that our food comes from agriculture, but we are also surrounded by and reliant upon many other inedible agricultural products that we use every day.