Fun Facts

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.

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.

Gluten is what helps bread expand while the dough rises, and hold its shape while baking and after it cools. It’s also what makes bread chewy.

From farm to processor to distribution and retail, dairy creates jobs that support the economic well-being of Kansans. The dairy industry contributes $592 million annually to the Kansas economy and...

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.

Did you know cotton is becoming a big crop in Kansas? Last year, farmers here produced over 164 million pounds of cotton! 

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

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

All the wheat grown in Kansas in a single year would fit in a train stretching from western Kansas to the Atlantic Ocean.

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.

One bale of cotton can make 3,085 diapers.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Did you know there are 15,000 soybean farms in Kansas? In 2016, Kansas farmers harvested more than 4 million acres of soybeans.