Ag Facts

Forests generate most of the water in the country, providing two-thirds of all the precipitation runoff the water that comes from the sky in the 48 contiguous states. Some 14 percent of all runoff comes from the roughly 190 million acres of our national forests, which take up only 8 percent of the land.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, more than 60 million people in 3,400 communities in 33 states rely on national forests for their drinking water. Millions more depend on state and private forests to facilitate the refilling of aquifers from which they draw their water.

Water from our national forests has an economic value of more than $3.7 billion a year, according to a Forest Service report issued in 2000.

SOURCE: Mike Dombeck, a professor of global environmental management at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, was chief of the United States Forest Service from 1997 to 2001.

The number of Internet users shopping online has skyrocketed in recent years. Of the estimated 168 million Internet users 16 years of age and older in the United States, approximately half say they shop online.

SOURCE: Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman, USDA