Fun Facts

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!

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.

Gluten-free grains have no caloric advantage over grains containing gluten like wheat, barley and rye. All carbohydrates have four calories per gram. Gluten-free foods are often higher in fat and...

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.

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

Energy experts estimate global ethanol production and use reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 110 million metric tons per year. That’s equivalent to taking more than 20 million vehicles off the road.

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.

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

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

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

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

Sows give birth (called farrowing) to an average of eight to twelve piglets at a time and will raise six to eight litters of piglets in their lifetime.

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

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

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

Small engines like lawnmowers and boats can use E10 fuel.

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.

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

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.

The largest market for field corn is to provide feed for animals like cattle, pigs, chicken, and even catfish.