Fun Facts

Did you know Kansas has more than 2 million pigs?

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.

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

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 average Kansas dairy cow produces about 7 gallons of milk each day. That’s more than 2,544 gallons of milk over the course of a typical year.

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

Pork tenderloin is as lean as a skinless chicken breast.

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

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!

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

One bale of cotton can make 4,312 mid-calf socks.

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

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

One bale of cotton can make 1,256 pillowcases.

In 2018, farmers in Kansas planted 165,000 acres of cotton, which produced about 335,000 bales!

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.

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.  

For a dessert to officially be considered ice cream, it must contain at least 10 percent milkfat.

Kansas grows winter wheat that is planted and sprouts in the fall, becomes dormant in the winter, grows again in the spring and is harvested in early summer.

A finished bale of cotton weighs about 480 pounds.