Working To Increase Demand For A Growing Supply

By United Soybean Board

Two international markets with potential to help global soy demand keep up with huge supply

With an abundance of soybean supply coming out of South America and the United States this year, global demand is as important as ever. While it would be easy for the U.S. soy industry to rely on its No. 1 customer, China, it knows it cannot put all of its beans in one basket.

The soy checkoff and its partners are busy in other markets as well, looking for new customers and innovative ways of using a bin-busting crop.

“As long as we do not have trade disruptions with China, our customers there will continue buying a substantial percentage of their soybeans from the U.S.,” says Laura Foell, United Soybean Board (USB) director and U.S. Soybean Export Council (USSEC) chair from Schaller, Iowa. “But as in every industry, we need to make sure that we have diverse markets.”

With such a huge supply of soybeans coming out of the U.S. each year, it is essential for demand to be strong in a variety of markets.

“We need global demand to continue growing,” says John Baize, who monitors global soybean markets for the soy checkoff. “We had record growth in global demand last year, and we need for that to continue to offset our growth in supply.

Baize points out strong demand-growth opportunities in Southeast Asia and Indonesia.

Southeast Asia

USSEC, the international marketing arm of the soy checkoff, leads a variety of projects in Southeast Asia to help U.S. farmers become a top supplier of soy in that area. USSEC hosts feed-technology and nutrition workshops, aquaculture feed demonstrations, regional buyers conferences and various types of workshops. It also hosts teams of food and feed importers on U.S. soybean farms so they can learn about the benefits of U.S. soy first hand.

Indonesia

More than 95 percent of the whole soybeans that Indonesia imports from the U.S. are used for the production of tempeh, a popular food in Indonesia made of soy.