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Restaurant industry sales in 2011 are estimated to have reached a record high of $604 billion, up 3.6 percent from 2010. Restaurant employment grew 1.9 percent in 2011, with some 230,000 jobs added, the strongest gain in five years.

Commodity prices are at a record high. In 1933, the world's population was just over 2 billion people. Today, there are 7 billion mouths to feed - many of them depending on American agriculture.

America's ranchers and farmers produce the highest-quality products in the world.

In the past 40 years, the United States lost more than a million farmers and ranchers. Many of our farmers are aging. Today, only nine percent of family farm income comes from farming, and more and more of our farmers are looking elsewhere for their primary source of income.

People forget that a huge proportion of our jobs still depend on agricultural production in Australia so of course there are exports. That's easily overlooked.

Historically, if you look at people like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, people with disposable incomes have always been agricultural innovators.

Agriculture was the first manufacturing industry in America and represents the best of all of us.

As income from work has become more concentrated in America, the super rich have invested in businesses, real estate, art, and other assets. The income from these assets is now concentrating even faster than income from work.

From 1950 to 2000, the U.S. economy grew at an average rate of 3.5 percent. That generated a massive gain in real GDP per person from $16,000 to over $50,000. A huge win for the middle class.

The farmers are older; they are under financial stress to produce more margins, yet they keep getting less.