Fun Facts

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

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 2018, farmers in Kansas planted 165,000 acres of cotton, which produced about 335,000 bales!

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

Beef from cows and steers are used in two different ways. . Cow meat is used primarily as ground beef for hamburgers and the majority of steer meat is used as steaks.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

There are four main types of sorghum: grain, forage, biomass and sweet. Their most popular uses are: for food (grain sorghum), as livestock feed (forage sorghum), to produce bioenergy (biomass...

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

One Kansas farmer raises enough food to feed about 155 people!

Compared with 50 years ago, pig farmers are using 41% less water to produce a pound of pork, with a 35% smaller carbon footprint.

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.

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

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

Did you know Kansas farmers grow about 330 million bushels of wheat each year? That’s enough to make 23 billion loaves of bread!

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.