Mr. Severson’s lecture shifted the focus of the farm to the livestock portion, as compared to Mr. Adkins’ focus on crops and irrigation. Mr. Severson opened up his lecture by showing us just how important farming is to the state of Delaware (i.e. 40% of the state’s land is farms, with 33% of the farm preserved through government programs). He went on to state how 96% of these farms in Delaware are family-farms, rather then the media’s interpretation of factory-farms. On a national scale, I was not very surprised to learn that beef is the number one meat in terms of consumption, followed by pork and poultry respectively. Even less surprising was the fact that poultry was the number 1 meat in Delaware specifically, given its huge poultry business. What was most interesting/surprising about this lecture was learning just how affordable food is in the U.S. when compared to other countries. For Americans, about 6.6% of a household’s income goes towards food, while also being safer and more abundant of a market. When compared to somewhere like Russia where 31.6% of a household’s income goes towards food, I felt very blessed and much more appreciative of all the food and options I have been, am, and will be given. Mr. Severson also touched on more niche markets such as hogs (which are not a huge market in Delaware) and goats for both meat and milk, as well as the dairy business. The interesting part of the dairy business is while milk production is at an all time high, the quantity of dairy cows themselves have declined thanks to genetics. This lecture, just as the lecture on crops and irrigation, goes to show just how intricate agriculture truly is.