Soybeans are used in a number of different products from food oil to cattle feed, but more demand is coming from the manufacturing industries as soybeans can be used to replace petroleum.
Belinda Burrier is a farmer leader with the United Soybean Board and a soybean grower in central Maryland. She explains how soybeans can be used in petroleum-based products from tires to tennis shoes.
She says soybeans are a renewable resource unlike petroleum. And farmers can put further conservation practices in place, such as no-till, to make the soybeans even more desirable from a sustainability standpoint. Burrier notes that American soybeans as a replacement for petroleum is an opportunity for American business to onshore products.
Burrier’s family farm produces high-oleic beans, which are the type of bean that when crushed, has a valuable oil. Commodity beans are mostly used for feed and biodiesel. The high-oleic oil goes to food-grade items or hygiene products. She notes the high-oleic beans have a higher price tag.
She says soybean acres are growing to meet these new demands.
Also in her interview with Mid-West Farm Report, Burrier talks about USB’s stance in the carbon credit space.
Leave a Reply