There’s a bumper soybean crop being harvested right now, and more than ever, that soy is going in many different ways to many different uses. Matt Amick is Director of Market Development with the Missouri Soybean Association and Missouri Soybean Merchandising Council.
“We had a great growing season, especially early on. A lot of parts of the traditional soybean growing areas had good conditions. I think in a lot of areas, it got a little dry in August, early September, so those late planted beans, or maybe the double crop beans, may have got a little bit of the yield taken off, but in general, we’re predicted to have a very large crop, which means we’re going to need a lot of new markets to take those soybeans to.”
Amick says the necessity of market expansion is a matter of simple economics.
“When we have a larger crop, across the world, we have new competition, or growing competition, from South America, they’re growing more soybeans. There’s more soybeans on the world supply, which is great for consumers and for those folks that are utilizing soybeans because it presents some good buying opportunities. So it’s just a function of trying to catch up that demand with this supply of soybeans, whether it be soybean meal or soybean oil, that’s on the world market.”
Amick says the first major new market explored by soy was biodiesel. But it hasn’t stopped there.
“Recently, we’ve really put a lot of research and efforts into new innovative uses, using soy meal and industrial products, or consumer products like soy tires, roofing products, asphalt and concrete products, Skechers shoes. There’s a variety of things that are happening. And we you know now, with our demand situation, a lot of our soybean oil is being utilized for biofuels. We’ve actually transitioned a lot of that to the protein portion, the soybean meal, the soy flour portion, and we’re looking for new uses with that product.”
And now soy is looking for more market expansion.
“So we’re really focused on trying to build out more domestic livestock utilization here in in in the Midwest and across the country, and also developing new export markets. We had a record soybean meal export last year. We’re probably going to have a new soybean meal export record this year, and it’s looking at markets like Southeast Asia, Latin America. So there’s a lot of new opportunities for growth with the soybean meal trying to use as much of it domestically, but then also looking at international markets as well.”