The Commercial Production of Green Beans

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Green Beans, also known as French beans and runner beans are commercially produced all over the world. They are easy to plant and grow, and delicious to eat. The major production of green beans in the United States is located in Oregon, Wisconsin, and western New York (Taber, 1).

A little bit of history about early American beans; Beans are one of the longest-cultivated plants. The common bean has been cultivated for six thousand years in the Americas. Columbus and other early explorers found Native Americans planting green beans in their corn gardens and many older, shade-tolerant, long-fining bean varieties still exist from companies that sell heirloom seeds. These early American beans are picked when the pods are full with immature beans. Stringing the beans is a mandatory step in their preparation. There are over 4,000 cultivars of bean on record in the United States alone. The world leader in production of green beans is Brazil, followed by India and then China. Here are a few statistics from a study made in June of 2008: The number of green bean production in Brazil is over 3million, India is 3 million, China had almost 2 million, Mexico had 1.3 million, United States 1.1 million, and added all up with the Countries mentioned and many others, the total number of green beans produced in 2008 was almost 20 million. (FAOSTAT data)

Green beans come in many shades of yellow, purple, green, and red. All colored beans are called “green beans” because they are pulled out and eaten at an immature stage, which is right before the seeds have ripened fully. There are two types of podded-beans, the round podded-beans, and the flat podded-beans. Most round-podded canned green beans have flesy, round pods with very little seeds inside...

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...icious to eat.

Works Cited

"Green Bean Facts." Kids Cooking Activities. 2006. 19 Feb. 2011. .

Pleasant, Barbara . "Growing Real Green Beans." Mother Earth News. Sep. 2006. 9 Feb. 2011. < http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/2006-09-01/Growing-Real-Green-Beans.aspx#ixzz1EEkHXfAL>.

"Statistics by Subject." USDA NASS. 2010. 19 Feb. 2011. .

Taber, Henry G.. "Green Bean Production." Iowa State University. Mar. 2009. 11 Feb. 2011. .

"The Top 5 Green Bean Producing Countries." Top 5 of Anything. 19 Feb. 2011. .

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