U.S. animal agriculture’s consumption of U.S. soybean meal increased by 1 million tons in the 2011/12 marketing year, according to a soy-checkoff-funded report. It takes 42 million bushels of soybeans to produce that amount of meal and that is good news for soybean farmers since domestic animal agriculture uses about 97 percent of the U.S. soybean meal consumed in the United States.
The increase is welcome news but the report also concluded that U.S. soybean farmers shouldn’t let their support for the animal ag industry weaken, and Frankfort, Indiana farmer Mike Beard agrees.
“It’s important for all soybean producers to recognize such a large segment of the demand portion of their industry.”
Animal ag farmers face pressures like rising feed costs and dwindling consumer demand here in the U.S. The report adds because animal ag continues to be U.S. soybean farmers’ No. 1 customer, these pressures also threaten the profitability of all soybean farmers.
According to the study, U.S. poultry, livestock and fish farmers used more than 30 million tons of soybean meal in the time period measured, or the meal from more than 1.26 billion bushels of U.S. soybeans. Broilers and swine continue to be by far the two biggest soybean-meal consumers.
For more news on the soy checkoff, visit unitedsoybean.org.