Facts about farming
Did you know that…..
- A single cow produces enough milk to fill nearly 26,000 cans of drink a year
- Cows have an acute sense of smell – they can smell something up to six miles away
- A pig’s squeal can reach 115 decibels – about the same as a Jumbo Jet at take-off
- Pigs are distant relatives of the hippopotamus. They do not have sweat glands, so roll in the mud to keep cool
- There are 35m million sheep and lambs in the UK - more than the number of people living in Canada (33m)
- Sheep are shorn in early summer to help them keep cool, producing 60,000t of wool each year
- One medium sized potato contains 45% of the vitamin C we need each day to stay healthy
- You could make about 1500 loaves of bread out of 1t of wheat
- 1 tonne of wheat contains 21 million grains
- One hectare of oilseed rape – the crop with yellow flowers - could produce enough biodiesel to power a family car 12,000 miles.
- We eat over 10bn eggs a year, which is 29m every day. Placed end to end these would reach from the earth to the moon
- Male ducks can’t quack!
Useful resources
Guy Smith’s Farm, Food and Countryside book
NFU primary and secondary teacher information packs
Love it, eat it facts about farming booklet – download pdf here ![]()
A-Z of farming facts booklet – download pdf here ![]()
The British Potato Council’s “Potatoes for Schools” website

