Fun Facts

Output from Kansas agriculture has a direct economic impact of $22.5 billion per year.

Kansas is known for its sunflowers. They provide food for insects, birds and cattle, and make great cooking oil, biofuel and a delicious snack for people!

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

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.

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

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

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

The cotton gin first came to Kansas in 1854 when a Polish immigrant wanted to gin local cotton near Valley Falls.

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

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.

A finished bale of cotton weighs about 480 pounds.

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...

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

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.

One bale of cotton can make 3,085 diapers.

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...

More than 87 percent of land in Kansas is farmland.

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.

Energy experts estimate global ethanol production and use reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 110 million metric tons per year. That’s equivalent to taking more than 20 million vehicles off the road.

Did you know Kansas has more than 2 million pigs?

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.