Fun Facts

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

98 percent of all corn farms are family-run farms.

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.

The largest market for field corn is to provide feed for animals like cattle, pigs, chicken, and even catfish. 

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

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

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

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

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

Did you know that one acre of soybeans can produce 82,368 crayons?

About four percent of the land in Kansas is part of conservation or wetland reserve programs.

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.

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.

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. 

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

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

More than 87 percent of land in Kansas is farmland.

Sorghum can be used to make environmentally-friendly packing peanuts, fencing materials, floral arrangements, brooms and more!

A finished bale of cotton weighs about 480 pounds.

Output from Kansas agriculture has a direct economic impact of $22.5 billion per year.

One bale of cotton can make 3,085 diapers.