Fun Facts

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.

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

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.

The average Kansas dairy cow produces about 7 gallons of milk each day. That’s more than 2,544 gallons of milk over the course of a typical year.

There are about 60-80 pods on a mature soybean plant. Each pod contains three small soybeans.

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.

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.

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

Pig farmers have reduced greenhouse gas emissions on pig farms by 35% per pound of pork by changing how crops are raised, how pigs are fed, and how nutrients are recycled.

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.  

Did you know corn tortillas can differ in color based on the type of corn used? Some are white and others are yellow.

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

Kansas is the top state for growing and storing wheat.

One bushel of corn fed to livestock produces 5.6 pounds of retail beef, 13 pounds of retail pork, 19.6 pounds of chicken or 28 pounds of catfish.

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.

Did you know that in Kansas cows outnumber people 2-to1? There are almost 3 million people and more than 6 million cattle!

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.

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

One 60-pound bushel of wheat provides about 42 pounds of white flour, enough for about 70, one-pound loaves of white bread.

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.

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.