During the past three years, USDA's conservation agencies, the U.S. Forest Service, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the Farm Service Agency, have worked with more than half a million farmers, ranchers and forest landowners to enroll record acres in conservation programs, have targeted conservation dollars to locally-driven conservation initiatives and have worked to increase conservation and restoration activities on the 193 million acre National Forest system.

WHITEHOUSE: The White House

U.S. farmers are expected to plant a record 214, 300 acres of chickpeas this year, up 3% from last year and a fivefold increase over a decade ago, the USDA said.

WSJ: Hummus Is Conquering America

Accounting for this subtraction, fewer onshore acres were leased in 2009 than any other year on record.

FORBES: Putting The Truth-o-Meter On Obama's State Of The Union Energy Claims

Though you'd never know it from the media, the Defense Department has been a superb environmental steward of the 25 million acres it manages in the U.S. Given its record in preserving and protecting habitat for more than 300 threatened or endangered species, the Pentagon does as good (or better) an environmental job as the Interior Department or the Forest Service.

FORBES: Fact and Comment

It's not the first time Burnt Point, which includes 25 acres on the Wainscott side of Georgica Pond in East Hampton, has broken a record.

FORBES: Hot Burnt Point