Fun Facts

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

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

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!

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

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.

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.

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

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!

The top five agiculture commodities in Kansas are cattle, corn, wheat, soybeans and sorghum.

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...

All the wheat grown in Kansas in a single year would fit in a train stretching from western Kansas to the Atlantic Ocean.

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

About four percent of the land in Kansas is part of conservation or wetland reserve programs.

More than 87 percent of land in Kansas is farmland.

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

Did you know that Americans consume about 132 pounds of wheat flour per person each year?

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.

Sows give birth (called farrowing) to an average of eight to twelve piglets at a time and will raise six to eight litters of piglets in their lifetime.

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.

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