Fun Facts

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

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.

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.  

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

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

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.

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...

One bale of cotton can make 3,085 diapers.

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.

Soybean oil is a great source of omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin E.

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.

Milk is one of the best sources of calcium. Our bodies absorb 28 percent of the calcium found in milk, but as little as 5 percent of the calcium found in other foods like spinach.

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!

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

Pork tenderloin is as lean as a skinless chicken breast.

Pig farmers have reduced greenhouse gas emissions on pig farms by 35% per pound of pork by changing how crops are raised, how pigs are fed, and how nutrients are recycled.

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

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...

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

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.

Dairy farmers work with animal nutritionists to create recipes that meet the specific nutritional requirements of their cows. A cow’s diet is a combination of hay, grain, silage and proteins,...