Fun Facts

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

There are more than 300 licensed dairy herds in Kansas with about 143,000 cows total. In 2015 cows produced about 365 million gallons of milk, making Kansas the 16th largest milk producing state.

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

One bushel of corn makes 2.8 gallons of ethanol.

A bushel of soybeans weighs 60 pounds and produces 11 pounds of oil and 48 pounds of soybean meal.

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

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.

Gluten is what helps bread expand while the dough rises, and hold its shape while baking and after it cools. It’s also what makes bread chewy.

Grains can be categorized into food grains (for people) and feed grains (for cattle). Cattle eat feed grains like field corn and grain sorghum. An average of 4 ½ pounds of grain is used to produce a...

Within an hour of birth calves are up and ready to nurse. A baby calf will drink a gallon of milk a day.

Did you know cotton is becoming a big crop in Kansas? Last year, farmers here produced over 164 million pounds of cotton! 

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

Did you know that Americans consume about 132 pounds of wheat flour per person each year?

Soybean oil is a great source of omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin E.

One dairy cow can produce more than 3,000 gallons of milk in a year. There are about 160,000 dairy cows in Kansas. That's a lot of milk!

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.

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.

More than 87 percent of land in Kansas is farmland.

Enriched white bread and other enriched grain products are a good source of iron and B vitamins (thiamin, riboflavin, niacin and folic acid), as well as complex carbohydrates.

In pre-refrigeration days, hogs were harvested in the fall and cured for six to seven months, just in time for Easter dinner. That’s how ham came to be the traditional Easter favorite.

In addition to meat, pigs provide us with lots of other products, including valves for human heart surgery, suede for shoes and clothing, and gelatin for many food and non-food uses.