Fun Facts

• Illinois produces enough corn each year to fill a train of boxcars stretching more than 7,600 miles from Illinois to Hong Kong.

• More than half of the corn in the U.S. is used for livestock feed.

• Illinois chickens lay eggs that are used to make candy bars, mints, and hard candies all year round.

• Illinois poultry produces 876 million eggs per year.

• Decatur, Illinois is known as the soybean capital of the world.

• Soybeans are made into a fuel called soy diesel, used for buses and trucks.

• Soybeans help farmers by leaving nitrogen in the soil for the next crop.

• Illinois farmers grow more pumpkins than anywhere else in the world. In fact, they grow 90% of the pumpkins used for processing. Most of that processing take place in Morton, Illinois - The Pumpkin Capital of the World.

• Pumpkins are good for your body. The filling is rich in vitamin A and potassium. The seeds are full of protein and iron.

• Hogs provide us with more products than any other animal.

• Insulin and about 40 other medicines are pig by-products. Heart valves from pigs have been used to replace human heart valves.

• Popcorn is the official snack of Illinois.

• Popcorn is different than regular corn because it contains moisture in the kernel. When it is heated, the moisture heats, pressure builds and the popcorn pops! Popcorn is a good source of carbohydrates, energy, and fiber.

• Illinois is the third largest producer of popcorn in the United States. We have 333 popcorn farms that grow about 47,000 acres of popcorn each year.

• Pecans are the only tree nuts that are native to North America. A small three-ounce bag of pecans provides almost 10% of the daily-recommended value of zinc. pecans go back a long way as they were a major source of food for Native Americans in the 1500's.

• The name "pecan" is an Algonquin word meaning "a tough nut to crack."

• Pecans contain over 19 vitamins and minerals, including vitamins A, E, several B vitamins, folic acid, calcium, magnesium, phosphate, potassium and zinc. Picans are heart-healthy, containing 87 percent unsaturated fatty acids - 62 percent monounsaturated and 25 percent polyunsaturated.

• One out of five jobs in the United States is related to agriculture.

• The cattle industry provides the most agricultural jobs.

• There are 1,470,000 cattle and calves on Illinois farms.

• JoDaviess, Hancock, Fulton, Adams, and Pike counties have more cattle than anywhere else in Illinois.

• One Illinois farmers feeds 94 people in the United States and 35 people overseas-that's 129 people per year.

Source: Grown from the Heart in the Heartland