Did you know Kansas produces 68 percent of the world's cattle? We are the second highest producer in the world; Texas came in first.
This is wrong in a couple of ways. The first is obvious, and I'm surprised that the reporter (or at least the Editor) didn't catch it. If you produce 68 percent of something, you cannot be the second largest producer. In fact, if you produce even the tiniest fraction over 50 percent of something, you're guaranteed to be the biggest producer of that thing. Second, I just don't see how it's possible for Kansas to produce 68 percent of the world's cattle. I'll admit we have a lot of them here, but just think of how many are in Nebraska, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, California, and a whole lot of other states. Then start thinking about how many are in all the other countries of the world.
If the article had said we produce even 6.8 percent of the world's cattle, I might have done a double-take, but I wouldn't have doubted it too long. That is on the order of a number that strikes me as reasonable ... and yet it's still somewhat larger than I might have expected.
The name of the reporter is a new one for the Smoke Signal, so let's give her the benefit of the doubt. She's probably very new to the job, fresh out of school, and not particularly polished at the art of taking notes at a meeting and then writing a story later. I hope she learns from her mistake. At the very least, Melissa took the paper to her Newspaper class at the High School today, so her fellow journalists could learn from it.
Update: According to the USDA Economic Research Service website, in 2006, Kansas produced $6.25 billion in Cattle and calves. This is 60.4 percent of the state's total receipts from agriculture, and 12.7 percent of the nation's. Our distant second most profitable agricultural activity was Wheat ($1.27 billion) followed by Corn, Soybeans and Hogs. As far as exports, Wheat was number 1 ($912 million), and we were number 1 in the nation in that commodity.
