There’s a statistic that gets thrown around a lot in Michigan: agriculture is the state’s second-largest industry.
“And I think that’s probably what a lot of people believe because they’ve heard it so many times,” said Michigan State University economist Charley Ballard. “But it’s not even close to true.”
In reality, farms make up about half of one percent of the Michigan economy, he said. We talked to Ballard about the role agriculture plays in the state’s economy, and why the myth of its status as the second-largest industry persists.
