Fun Facts

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

One bale of cotton can make 3,085 diapers.

Kansas is known for its sunflowers. They provide food for insects, birds and cattle, and make great cooking oil, biofuel and a delicious snack for people!

The cotton gin first came to Kansas in 1854 when a Polish immigrant wanted to gin local cotton near Valley Falls.

Small engines like lawnmowers and boats can use E10 fuel.

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!

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.

Did you know Kansas has more than 2 million pigs?

In Kansas alone, pig farmers raised over 3.2 million pigs in 2015, producing over 600 million pounds of pork!

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...

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.  

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.

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

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

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.