Fun Facts

Grain sorghum is one of the oldest known grains. Its origins can be traced back to ancient Africa and India.

Corn is produced on every continent of the world with the exception of Antarctica. 

Did you know Kansas has an official state soil? It's called Harney silt loam and it covers about 4 million acres of land in our state. 

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

One Kansas farmer raises enough food to feed about 155 people!

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

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

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

Cotton bolls, which are the puffs of white produced by cotton plants, are technically fruit.

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.

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 one-third of the milk produced in the U.S. is used for making cheese.

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.  

Sows give birth (called farrowing) to an average of eight to twelve piglets at a time and will raise six to eight litters of piglets in their lifetime.

One bale of cotton can make 1,256 pillowcases.

The majority of oil used for cooking in our country is U.S.-grown 100% soybean oil!

There are 7 different breeds of dairy cattle. Farmers choose their breeds based on milk production, size and even personality.

All the wheat grown in Kansas in a single year would fit in a train stretching from western Kansas to the Atlantic Ocean.

Did you know some of the fertilizer farmers add to the soil comes from the air we breathe? Companies can convert nitrogen in the air into nitrogen to nourish the ground.

Farmers in Kansas grow more than 650 million bushels of corn each year. 

Cotton can be found in much more than clothes and other fabrics! Cotton by-products can be used to make paper currency, cosmetics and feed for dairy cattle and livestock.