Fun Facts

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

From farm to processor to distribution and retail, dairy creates jobs that support the economic well-being of Kansans. The dairy industry contributes $592 million annually to the Kansas economy and...

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

One bale of cotton can make 1,256 pillowcases.

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!

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.

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,...

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.

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.  

There are four main types of sorghum: grain, forage, biomass and sweet. Their most popular uses are: for food (grain sorghum), as livestock feed (forage sorghum), to produce bioenergy (biomass...

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...

There are more than 29 cuts of beef that meet government guidelines for lean, including tenderloin, T-bone steak and extra lean ground beef.

One Kansas farmer raises enough food to feed about 155 people!

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

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

One cowhide can produce enough leather to make 20 footballs, 18 soccer balls, 18 volleyballs or 12 basketballs.

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

Did you know Kansas has more than 2 million pigs?

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.

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!