Fun Facts

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

One bale of cotton can make 3,085 diapers.

About a third of a steer is used for beef production. The rest of the animal is used to make by-products found in medicines, cosmetics, detergents, insulation, and much more!

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

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

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.  

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

Gluten-free grains have no caloric advantage over grains containing gluten like wheat, barley and rye. All carbohydrates have four calories per gram. Gluten-free foods are often higher in fat and...

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

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

Pork tenderloin is as lean as a skinless chicken breast.

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.