Fun Facts

A finished bale of cotton weighs about 480 pounds.

Grain sorghum is one of the oldest known grains. Its origins can be traced back to ancient Africa and India.

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.

One bushel of corn makes 2.8 gallons of ethanol.

The top five agiculture commodities in Kansas are cattle, corn, wheat, soybeans and sorghum.

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.

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.

One bale of cotton can make 3,085 diapers.

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

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 7 different breeds of dairy cattle. Farmers choose their breeds based on milk production, size and even personality.

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.

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

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

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

One 60-pound bushel of wheat provides about 42 pounds of white flour, enough for about 70, one-pound loaves of white bread.

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

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

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