Why Soybeans Have Become The Second Largest Crop In The U.S.

Soybeans are the second largest crop in the U.S., averaging around 85 million planted acres over the past 5 years. That is an area 89 percent as large as the total land area of the Northeastern U.S. (Maine, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont
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, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Delaware). Soybeans play an important role in terms of our food supply (food and feed) and in terms of non-food materials from renewable fuels to bio-based plastics.

Soybeans have a farmgate value of 1.71 billion to 2.53 billion and contribute around $124 billion annually to the economy at their point of use. Even so, the history and diverse utilization of soybeans remains largely unfamiliar to most Americans.

Funded by the half-million U.S. soybean farmers, the U.S. Soy brand recently produced a documentary in collaboration with Spot Content Studio, titled “GroundBreaking: A Story of Innovation,” as part of their effort to raise public awareness of the importance of this crop. It is described as “Unearthing How Small Things Can Influence Our Lives in Big Ways.”

The documentary is available on A&E, and will likely be available on additional platforms in the future and hopefully as part of school curriculum. The film will be described below, but here the three graphs below put this in perspective:

Soybeans: Historical Statistics

Significant soybean cultivation in the U.S. began around 100 years ago and increased dramatically until around 1980 with some additional expansion over the last two decades.

Soybeans are now the number two crop grown in the U.S. behind corn, and significantly ahead of wheat, cotton and other major row crops.

Initially, soybean yields were very low and not all the acreage was even harvested, but the per area productivity of this crop has been steadily increasing and continues to do so today.

This crop is attractive from a sustainability perspective since this plant is a “legume” that is able to supply almost all of its nitrogen fertilizer needs by association with the nitrogen-fixing bacterium, Rhizobium. A large proportion of soybeans are grown in “climate smart” and/or “regenerative” systems that include crop rotation and no-till or strip-till cultivation regimes that can lead to net carbon sequestration. A recent life cycle analysis commissioned by the United Soybean Board documents the increasingly sustainable profile of this crop, revealing a 19% decrease in carbon footprint for U.S. soybeans. Their documentary, GroundBreaking: A Story of Innovation, hopes to shed further light on this little bean’s role in future innovations.

A Crop With A Story That Needs To Be Shared

“The soybean is quite a sustainable and economic driver across many sectors, but we’ve found out that a lot of people don’t know a lot about it and don’t have a perception about it one way or the other. So, the hope is ‘GroundBreaking’ can help provide a positive perception of soy for consumers,” said Steve Reinhard, an Ohio farmer and chair of the United Soybean Board. “When we work with people like scientists and innovators at various brands to integrate soy, it helps showcase that soy isn’t only something linked to food or animal feed and can provide sustainable solutions across everyday consumer products.”

Soybeans were first introduced in the U.S. by an Englishman named Samuel Bowen. He had been imprisoned in China for violating a travel restriction, but he had learned the secret of how to make soy sauce and was eventually able to smuggle 30 to 40 pounds of soybean seeds out of China. He eventually ended up in Savannah, Georgia and began to cultivate this novel crop in the 1760s. Soybeans were re-introduced in the early-1800s and people began to discover many other uses for the beans, particularly as animal feed, but also non-food uses.

The documentary narrative then pivots to Detroit to a scene at a race car track which is acknowledged as an industry “not normally associated with sustainability.”

It turns out that soybeans have a very long connection with the automotive industry. Henry Ford was looking into plant-based materials during the 1920s and built a soybean materials lab in 1929. He was heralded by Time Magazine as the number one soybean promoter and the positive aspects of that for farmers were noted by the American agricultural scientist and inventor, George Washington Carver. Ford’s goal was to make body parts for cars with soy-based plastic culminating in a largely soybean-based prototype car in 1941 – an effort that was derailed by the demands of WWII. The interest in plant-based alternatives is a contemporary effort and examples were cited in the tire and fuel industry (Firestone and Penske).

The documentary goes on to visit a soybean breeding site in Arkansas where the painstaking process of cross pollination for plant breeding is featured with a discussion of the important example of a herbicide tolerance trait. The next stop is the Kansas City Barbeque Society’s World Invitational BBQ Contest to mention the role of soy protein and oil in meat production, followed by a visit to a Midwestern family farm raising soybeans and hogs with a discussion of the advantages of soy in terms of energy and high-quality protein with the appropriate amino acid mix. Next there is a visit to an aquaculture facility with recirculating water in Alabama in which ocean-caught fishmeal can be replaced with soy for more economic and less environmentally impactful production.

“While we focus on soy’s versatility across a wide range of areas, the various farmers highlighted in the documentary show that they care about the same things that you do … healthy soils, clean water and a safe food supply,” said Reinhard. “Showing our farmers’ first hand and their efforts in innovative crop breeding and nutritious animal diets really brings to light that there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to soybeans.”

Next there is a visit to a stain development lab at Pittsburgh Paint and Glass which has long used soybean oil in its wood stains and protective and marine and automotive coatings.

The documentary concludes with a visit to the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii for simulation of space exploration where preparations are being made for human colonization of Mars and where soybeans are being tested in simulated Martian soil.

GroundBreaking: A Story of Innovation is available to stream on aetv.com.

Soybeans As A Production Platform For High Value Proteins

Soybeans are also particularly good at making protein and there has been considerable interest in using that capability to make high value food ingredients or even biopharmaceutical proteins. One example of this kind of “Molecular Farming” is being pursued by a start-up company called Alpine Bio whose first project has been to make casein – the main protein in milk which is highly nutritious, but which is also responsible for the special properties of cheese for cooking, stretching feature and for the desirable mouth-feel. Alpine’s project could provide a lactose-free option and based on modeling it is projected to require less land and water resources than traditional, dairy-based cheese.

Soybeans were the logical platform for because the regulatory framework is in place through which the USDA and FDA can certify that a bioengineered line such as this does not represent a plant pest risk and that the casein will qualify for GRAS status (Generally Regarded as Safe
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). Another advantage is that soy growers are already used to the rules for producing “identity preserved” versions of the crop and segregating that harvest from the commodity stream. Alpine has worked out the details of how to get the soybeans to make a great deal of the casein in its functional form and there is existing infrastructure for the pressing, protein extraction and other processing steps. Alpine plans to use their learnings about soy protein expression to produce many other high value products in the future