Fun Facts

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

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.

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.

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

Did you know Kansas has more than 2 million pigs?

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

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

A finished bale of cotton weighs about 480 pounds.

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.  

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!

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

One bale of cotton can make 4,312 mid-calf socks.

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

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

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.