Tomorrow is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day in the United States. I still remember the very first Earth Day when I was in middle school and it was a very “hippy-ish” sort of deal. Today, everyone is in on the environmental act.

That includes farmers and ranchers – the original environmentalists. As National Corn Growers Association president Darrin Ihnen, a family farmer from South Dakota says, “It only makes sense that growers would work to preserve land, water and air. We need to conserve these resources for the survival of our farms, which most of us have passed from generation to generation.”

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, today’s farmers produce 70 percent more corn per pound of nutrients than they did in the 1970s. Farmers are able to use less fertilizer because new high-tech equipment puts fertilizer directly over the plants’ roots instead of spreading it on the whole field, and in-seed technologies are constantly improving corn’s fertilizer-use efficiency.

In celebration of Earth Day, the cattle industry has outlined more than 40 different ways raising cattle can contribute to environmental sustainability. Among the practices cattle producers use to help the environment are maintaining habitats for endangered species, planting trees for windbreaks, planting grasses on highly erodible land, composting cattle manure into fertilizer products, and incorporating ethanol by-products into cattle feed to recycle this resource.

Instead of “abstaining from meat for at least one day to curb carbon emissions from the livestock industry,” as suggested on the “official” Earth Day 2010 website, I hope to enjoy a nice big steak to thank our farmers and ranchers for all they do to help our planet.