Fun Facts

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.

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

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!

A bushel of soybeans weighs 60 pounds and produces 11 pounds of oil and 48 pounds of soybean meal.

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.

Wheat flour is a good source of complex carbohydrates and contains protein. Plus, it’s low in fat and sodium.

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.

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.  

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Did you know the corn humans eat is different from the corn that cattle eat? Most of the corn people eat is sweet  corn. Cattle and other livestock eat field corn.

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

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

Grains can be categorized into food grains (for people) and feed grains (for cattle). Cattle eat feed grains like field corn and grain sorghum. An average of 4 ½ pounds of grain is used to produce a...