Fun Facts

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.

Cotton can be found in much more than clothes and other fabrics! Cotton by-products can be used to make paper currency, cosmetics and feed for dairy cattle and livestock.

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

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...

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Wheat flour is a good source of complex carbohydrates and contains protein. Plus, it’s low in fat and sodium.

One bushel of corn makes 2.8 gallons of ethanol.

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

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 that in Kansas cows outnumber people 2-to1? There are almost 3 million people and more than 6 million cattle!

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.

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

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

98 percent of all corn farms are family-run farms.

There are about 60-80 pods on a mature soybean plant. Each pod contains three small soybeans.