EPA Tips for Building a Cleaner Fire this Holiday Season

"Across the country this holiday season, families and friends will gather around fires in woodstoves or fireplaces. But how you build that fire – and what you burn – can have a significant impact on air quality and health, both inside your home and out.

Whether you’re using a woodstove, pellet stove, or your fireplace, seeing smoke from your chimney means your fire isn’t burning efficiently or cleanly as it could.

Woodsmoke contains fine particles – also called fine particle pollution or PM_2.5 -- which can harm the lungs, blood vessels and heart. People with heart, vascular or lung disease, and older adults and children are more at risk..."
Fire and holidays

The U.S. Produce Industry and Labor: Facing the Future in a Global Economy
"Fruit and vegetable production is a labor-intensive process, and over half of the hired workers employed by growers are believed to be unauthorized immigrants. Reforms to immigration laws, if they reduce the labor supply, may increase the cost of farm labor. The authors of this report assess how particular fruit and vegetable commodities might adjust if labor rates increased. Analysis of case studies suggests a range of possible adjustment scenarios, including increased mechanization for some crops, reduced U.S. output for a few crops, and increased use of labor aids to improve labor productivity for others."

Farm Household Economics and Well-Being:Farm Household Income
"This chapter presents the latest U.S. farm household income estimates and a revised forecast for 2010. The 2009 estimates are based on the latest 2009 Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) data. This chapter includes information on the composition of income, comparisons of income for farm households relative to U.S. households, and variations in farm household income by farm size and specialization.

Income estimates for farm operator households presented in this briefing room differ from other farm income estimates of the farm sector or of farm businesses. In particular, principal farm operator households receive income from a variety of sources other than their farm businesses, such as wages and salaries from off-farm jobs, other businesses, dividends and interest, and other public and private sources that are included here but not in the farm sector accounts..."

Million-Dollar Farms in the New Century
"Million-dollar farms—those with annual sales of at least $1 million—accounted for about half of U.S. farm sales in 2002, up from a fourth in 1982 (with sales measured in constant 2002 dollars). By 2006, million-dollar farms, accounting for 2 percent of all U.S. farms, dominated U.S. production of high-value crops, milk, hogs, poultry, and beef. The shift to million-dollar farms is likely to continue because they tend to be more profitable than smaller farms, giving them a competitive advantage. Most million-dollar farms (84 percent) are family farms, that is, the farm operator and relatives of the operator own the business. The million-dollar farms organized as nonfamily corporations tend to have no more than 10 stockholders."