Fun Facts

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

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.

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!

One cowhide can produce enough leather to make 20 footballs, 18 soccer balls, 18 volleyballs or 12 basketballs.

Kansas exports more than $4.8 billion in agricultural products per year.

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

Drink local with milk! It takes about 48 hours for milk to travel from dairy farms to the grocery store.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Small engines like lawnmowers and boats can use E10 fuel.

Energy experts estimate global ethanol production and use reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 110 million metric tons per year. That’s equivalent to taking more than 20 million vehicles off the road.

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.

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.

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.

A finished bale of cotton weighs about 480 pounds.

The journey from the time a calf is conceived to the time beef is consumed takes 24-30 months and thousands of miles—from ranches, farms, feed yards and packing plants to grocery stores and...

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

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.