Fun Facts

Cattle are great recyclers. They convert natural resources that would otherwise be wasted into beef, an edible protein containing 10 essential nutrients such as zinc, iron and B vitamins.  

In Kansas alone, pig farmers raised over 3.2 million pigs in 2015, producing over 600 million pounds of pork!

A finished bale of cotton weighs about 480 pounds.

The cotton gin first came to Kansas in 1854 when a Polish immigrant wanted to gin local cotton near Valley Falls.

The top five agiculture commodities in Kansas are cattle, corn, wheat, soybeans and sorghum.

Did you know the corn humans eat is different from the corn that cattle eat? Most of the corn people eat is sweet  corn. Cattle and other livestock eat field corn.

Compared with 50 years ago, pig farmers are using 41% less water to produce a pound of pork, with a 35% smaller carbon footprint.

Gluten-free grains have no caloric advantage over grains containing gluten like wheat, barley and rye. All carbohydrates have four calories per gram. Gluten-free foods are often higher in fat and...

There are more than 29 cuts of beef that meet government guidelines for lean, including tenderloin, T-bone steak and extra lean ground beef.

Energy experts estimate global ethanol production and use reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 110 million metric tons per year. That’s equivalent to taking more than 20 million vehicles off the road.

Fertilizer contains a lot of helpful nutrients, thanks to Mother Nature! Potash, which is salt from ancient evaporated oceans, is used in fertilizer to feed our soil.

Mexico and Japan are our top international corn buyers. They buy 50 percent of U.S. corn exports.

More than 87 percent of land in Kansas is farmland.

One bale of cotton can make 1,256 pillowcases.

It takes five to six months for a pig to reach market weight (about 265 pounds). One market hog provides about 160 pounds of pork for the grocery store’s meat case.

There are four main types of sorghum: grain, forage, biomass and sweet. Their most popular uses are: for food (grain sorghum), as livestock feed (forage sorghum), to produce bioenergy (biomass...

About two-thirds of the Kansas corn crop is used in-state as livestock feed or in food production. 

Milk is one of the best sources of calcium. Our bodies absorb 28 percent of the calcium found in milk, but as little as 5 percent of the calcium found in other foods like spinach.

A common ingredient in fertilizer is phosphate, which comes from ancient sea life. Phosphate is one of many natural ingredients used to keep soil — and plants! — healthy.

Kansas grows winter wheat that is planted and sprouts in the fall, becomes dormant in the winter, grows again in the spring and is harvested in early summer.

For a dessert to officially be considered ice cream, it must contain at least 10 percent milkfat.