Today this column shamelessly follows a trend that has appeared in other print media. You’ve seen this phenomenon: lists of interesting numbers that have recently appeared, in some context, in the news.
We thought we’d give it a try.
90: Percentage of Alberta households that indicated they had purchased local food within the last 12 months, according to Alberta Agriculture figures.
$380 million: Amount of annual sales at Alberta farmers markets.
46: Number of minutes per day that Canadians spend laughing, according to a study by Bel Cheese Canada.
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97: Percentage in the above study who claimed never to have laughed at others’ expense.
40: Percentage of Canadians in an Ipsos-Reid poll who said they relied more on newspapers than any other medium to obtain reliable news.
15: Percentage in the above survey who said they don’t read newspapers at all.
$40 and $20: Per head payments for Saskatchewan cattle and hog producers, respectively, announced by the provincial government in its recent assistance package.
$1 billion: Amount federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz says Ottawa has spent over the last two years on Saskatchewan livestock producers.
48: Percentage of market share of Canada’s beef packing industry that will be obtained by XL Foods once it purchases the Tyson plant at Brooks, Alta., according to National Farmers Union figures.
$339: Prize money awarded to the community that held the biggest Square Root Day event, on March 3, 2009, or 3/3/09. Square root days occur nine times in each century. The next one is 04/04/16.
24,000: Number of people injured in Alberta traffic collisions in 2007, according to Alberta Transportation.
458: People who died in the above.
89: Number of American farmers aged 18 to 35 who say they are better off than they were five years ago, according to a survey by the American Farm Bureau.
48: Percentage of farmers in the above study who said they were more optimistic than they were five years ago about the future of their chosen profession.
Unknown thousands: Number of people copied on an erroneous e-mail that accuses McDonald’s of buying its beef from South America rather than Canada. (See Big Mac remains Canadian beef, says chain rep for details.)
Unknown millions: Number of people who forward e-mails without first questioning their truth.
Unknown hundreds: Number of people who wonder what a new soft drink, made from the urine of sacred cows in India, would taste like.
