World Series of agriculture

Oct 25, 2016

Ohio and Illinois will square off for baseball’s top prize

By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com

On Tuesday night, the Cleveland Indians will host the Chicago Cubs in game one of the World Series to determine who the best team in baseball is.

The Cubs haven’t won baseball’s top prize since 1908, a championship drought spanning 108 years; while the Indians are trying to win their first title since 1948, a 68-year span.

And while analysts will use stats like pitching, hitting and defense to determine a winner, Farms.com is using agriculture stats to predict the champion using the two states involved: Illinois and Ohio.

**represents advantage

Source: National Agricultural Statistics Service	Ohio	Illinois
Team
Number of farm operations	**74,400	73,600
Acres operated	14,000,000	**26,900,000
Milk production (lbs)	**5,493,000,000	1,892,000,000
Top crop ($)	Soybeans - $2,097,450,000	**Corn - $7,345,625,000
Average farmer age	**56.8	57.8
Aquaculture ($)	$3,875,000	**$5,425,000
Hogs & pigs (Inventory)	2,058,503,000	**4,630,796,000

Based on the statistics from the National Agricultural Statistics Service, the Cleveland Indians will win the 2016 World Series.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.