Fun Facts

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

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.

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.

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.  

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

The United States grows more soybeans than any other country and six out of every ten rows of soybeans are exported to other countries.

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.

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.

One bale of cotton can make 1,256 pillowcases.

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

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.

Kansas is the top state for growing and storing wheat.

Within an hour of birth calves are up and ready to nurse. A baby calf will drink a gallon of milk a day.

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

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

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

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

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.

Did you know corn tortillas can differ in color based on the type of corn used? Some are white and others are yellow.

Did you know Kansas has an official state soil? It's called Harney silt loam and it covers about 4 million acres of land in our state. 

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