ST. LOUIS — As some U.S. farmers enter the fields this spring, their center of attention likely won’t be on protein and oil. Meanwhile, that’s exactly the focus of U.S. soy customers when deciding what to buy. According to a recent soy checkoff survey, nearly 70 percent of U.S. soybean farmers feel no need to worry about protein and oil content because they have no problem – at present – selling their soybeans.  

“Most farmers see a price per bushel and see soy for the sum of its parts,” says Marc Curtis, immediate past chair for the United Soybean Board. “That value actually is calculated based on the value of meal and oil, minus the processing costs, but we don’t get that sort of transparency.”

The survey also helped measure soy farmers’ receptiveness to a component value system, being fairly reimbursed based on the value of protein and oil in their harvested soybeans. Nearly 66 percent of U.S. soybean farmers responded favorably to this idea, and 35 percent believed it would impact their price positively.