Meal’s Inner Qualities

U.S. soybean farmers work to keep meal quality and demand high

 

Soybean meal is a staple ingredient for most hog and poultry rations here in the United States and around the world. Increasing competition and growth of other sources like distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS) and synthetic amino acids is putting the pressure on the soybean industry to offer customers an even better product.

 

Bob Metz, a Peever, South Dakota farmer and United Soybean Board International Opportunities Target Area Lead, says end users are becoming increasingly quality- and value-conscious.

 

“Our customers are getting more sophisticated all the time,” Metz says.

 

For years, crude protein was the standard by which meal value was measured. But, as customers at home and abroad become more aware of different kinds of value, soybean meal continues to shine. Metz says the availability of highly digestible amino acids like lysine, methionine and threonine in soybean meal helps animals and poultry perform better compared with other ingredients.

 

“We’ve proven year in and year out that U.S. soybeans have high digestible amino acids,” Metz adds. “Pigs and chickens get a whole lot more from soybean meal than they do from many other feed ingredients. We need to continue to prove that to our customers.”

 

The national soy checkoff is addressing this challenge in several ways. On one hand, farmer-leaders are working across the value chain to identify new versions of soybean meal that would be successful in the marketplace and add to soybean-farmer profitability. At the same time, soy-checkoff-supported research efforts are underway to keep U.S. soy’s place at the top and meet customer needs by improving quality and composition. The following are some examples of that work.

 

 

Purdue University is working to modify the carbohydrate composition in soybean meal with the goal of developing soybean varieties with reduced simple sugars for improved animal performance and gut health.

 

 

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and breeders from seven states are researching the development of high-yielding soybean cultivars, which produce soybeans with higher protein content and improved amino acid composition.

 

 

The University of Minnesota is studying precision genomics for soybean composition. The project is part of an initiative to develop soybean lines with targeted characteristics that improve seed composition traits to target soybean genes involved in seed oil and protein development.