Where are your soybeans going?

March 5, 2026 | Bethany Baratta

Funded primarily through the soybean checkoff, staff working for the U.S. Soybean Export Council (USSEC) are boots-on-the-ground, working with buyers and end users to understand the advantages U.S. soy provides over soy of other origins.

And last week, regional directors took to the stage at Commodity Classic to shed light on the market opportunities for U.S. soy.

Discussion Summary

Here is a summary of that panel discussion, moderated by Kerrey Kerr-Enskat, USSEC’s communications director:

Jim Sutter, USSEC CEO

We focus on three main strategic goals as we do our work in approximately 90 countries:

1) Attaining market access, making sure we can get soy into the country, there aren't barriers. 
2) Differentiating U.S. soy, making sure people understand why U.S. soy is better.
3) Elevating preference for U.S. soy. We want to make sure that people prefer U.S. soy. 

We've been really focused on diversifying exports. For years, China's been the No. 1 soy importer in the world, so it's been an important market for the U.S. We still want to have a strong presence in China, but we certainly don't want them to be our only market.

Just this past year, exports to Mexico, the EU, Egypt, Philippines and Bangladesh together grew by 25% versus the previous year. 

Rosalind Leeck, USSEC managing director of Europe and the Americas

When you look at the Americas and Europe, you've got two different approaches. 

In the Americas, we have a high share, and it's a growing market, and we’ll continue to see growth. 
In Europe, we have the opportunity for greater share in a very stable market. We'll see our exports or opportunities continue to grow there as well

Product diversification: Traditional shipments to Europe have largely been soybeans, but with additional crush capacity in the U.S., we’ll have the opportunity to ship additional soybean meal.

We'll see market diversification in the form of not new countries, but in our product mix that's going into the marketplace.

Just this week, we're seeing a cargo of soybean meal being unloaded in Poland. This is a market that we haven't traditionally seen flows from the U.S. go to, so we’re excited to see that. We know that there are two other cargoes going right behind it. You might think of Europe as being a mature and stable market, and it certainly is, but we have opportunities to continue to grow. 

Carlos Salinas, executive director for East Asia (Greater China, Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand)

It’s an area of scalability. The area has 65% of the world's soybean trade and about 30% of the world's soybean meal trade. It’s an area where the U.S. has a very low market share in soybean meal, particularly markets like Indonesia, Thailand and some of the places where we're having some agreements come into place.

We see a great opportunity for growth as we expand our U.S. soybean meal exports. We have seen some of that growth, particularly in Vietnam. When you talk about soybeans, obviously, it's China primarily. They're over 60% of the global soybean trade. We're also seeing trade taking place there for non-commercial reasons, as you well know. I think this area is quite attractive as we move forward. Indonesia is a perfect example of market diversification.

China will be there, and we have to remain present in China. As we diversify our portfolio, we've got to seek those opportunities in different industries and segments. Southeast Asia clearly provides that opportunity. On soybeans, we do have a high market share in places like Japan and other areas where we have a food business. We also have a strong crush business as well, but those are more mature markets. The up and coming and development markets for soybean meal are clearly Southeast Asia.

Kevin Roepke, executive director for the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia regions

Rapid urbanization and rapid disposable income growth defines this region. 

We're seeing this rapid explosion in protein demand characterized by leading poultry companies, both broiler operations and layer operations. One such market of example is Bangladesh.

You can think of Bangladesh as a country about half the population of the United States and a footprint about the size of Wisconsin. Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, is the second-largest city in the world, projected to be the largest city in the world by 2050. This very highly dense country is undergoing a significant explosion in productivity, in GDP, and economic growth. We're seeing them prefer U.S. soy as the preferred supplier. They recently signed a $1.25 billion letter of intent to purchase U.S. soy to feed this growing crush sector and exploding poultry sector.

Even when you look at exciting opportunities at home like biofuels, for the demand for vegetable oil and soybean oil, you have to also look at the other component of the crush, and that's the soybean meal. Last year, we were fortunate and proud of the fact that we had record exports in soybean meal. We're looking at diversifying the product portfolio and exciting opportunities across Middle East,  North Africa, and South Asia., and markets like Saudi Arabia, which is also undergoing a rapid explosion in poultry processing, and poultry demand and poultry production as well. This bodes very well for both the protein component and vegetable oil component of the soybean, which is all very positive news for the U.S. soybean farmer.

Brent Babb, executive director, Soy Excellence Center and Sub-Saharan Africa

Soy Excellence Centers provide early- to mid-career professionals with knowledge and skills regarding the use of U.S. soy. With both virtual and in-person training options, it’s geared toward protein professionals working in the poultry, livestock, dairy cattle, aquaculture and feed mill sectors, and, in Southeast Asia and some of the Asia countries, in soy food.

It helps learners understand how to take advantage of the U.S. soy that they're working with and running their feed mill and running their poultry operation to gain these advantages and better amino acid, more consistent soy product, better energy value.

The professionals usually aren’t buying U.S. soy themselves in their current role at this stage of their career, but very likely will be. As they're building their career, they're learning about U.S. soy and about how to be the most efficient producer.

Panel Questions

Are soy exports being used primarily as a food source for humans, for animals, or for both?

Sutter: The exports of soy are generally used for livestock purposes. When a soybean is exported, most of those beans are crushed, turned into meal and oil in the destination market. In most cases, that is used for animals, the meal portion, and the oil, most of the time for cooking oil purposes. There are some exceptions to that.

Soybeans going to Indonesia, for example, are used to produce a product called tempeh. Indonesia is a top 10 soybean market. They use it for human uses. There are also some specialty soybean exports to Asia that are generally identity-preserved soybeans that would be shipped in a container. That would be probably 7%, 8% of the total crop. Those would be also used into food uses.

As we look at U.S. biofuels policy expanding and, in turn, the expansion of U.S. crush and soybean meal production, where do you guys see soybean meal fitting into the U.S. export agenda over the coming years? Where will the excess production of soybean meal go?

Roepke: If you go back about five years ago, the U.S. exported about 12 million metric tons of soybean meal. Today, we're going to be exporting close to 17 million metric tons of soybean meal. If you look at the next five years, I don't say this, many different experts will say this, we're going to be maybe 20, 22 million metric tons, a significant expansion. Some of that growth is by market share, we're gaining market share against other origins, which is great news.

Also, you have to keep in mind that the relative value of soybean meal has become more competitive of U.S. soybean meal versus other ingredients and feed formulations. That translates into additional demand because it becomes an opportunity for the feed compounder or the poultry producer to increase the share of soybean meal in those feed rations. In East Asia, for example, a 1% gain in inclusion rates of soybean meal in the feed ration translates to 7 million metric tons of soybean meal.

Today, we export 17 million metric tons. 1% is 7 million metric tons. It's significant growth. We see that opportunity. Some of our projects are actually directed that way because that's how we're going to be able to assimilate the flow. I have been impressed how the industry has taken us from 12 to 17 million metric tons, and I'm very much looking forward to that 20, 22, or more, which is going to set us apart with some of the largest world soybean meal exporters like Argentina.

Leeck: What's essentially happening is that the crush capacity would need to be built someplace, and it happens to be being built in the United States right now, largely because of some of the biofuels policy that's helping drive markets for that oil domestically.

We're seeing the crush expansion in the U.S., and there's plenty of global demand for soybean meal as we continue to see the populations change as well as the disposable income go up, and the diets change as a result of it. I think when you look at it globally, this is a good business to be in. The protein business is a good business to be in. There's plenty of demand around the world, and we'll continue to have great opportunities for U.S. soy farmers to supply either beans or meal. Whichever one we have, we can supply what the market needs.

What opportunities have opened up because of some of the trade agreements or frameworks that have developed over the past year? Do you see any headway being made in the country, particularly like India, when it comes to soybean or soy meal?

Sutter: I do think there has been progress made in several different countries with the coming out of the reciprocal day tariffs that were put in place on April 2nd, and everybody had different reactions to those. Really, the only negative impact came from China, where they put a reciprocal tariff in place. We all know about that, so we don't need to spend much time talking about that. I think in other cases you mentioned India. It gave the opportunity for U.S. negotiators to be talking with India about opening up their agriculture market, and that's obviously a very sensitive subject there.

The release that came out about the framework with India mentioned soybean oil. Now, if you think about it, in the U.S., we're crushing more beans because we need oil for our biofuels industry, so we're probably not going to have a lot of soybean oil to export. The Indians were very smart with that one. We continue to talk with the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) about the opportunities for soybean meal going into India, which they imported in '21 and '22, so it's not an unusual thing, and also soybeans for specialty purposes. We think that there's still an opportunity for that to come about in the India agreement.

Then we see several other places. Kevin mentioned Bangladesh. Carlos mentioned Indonesia. Indonesia, the agreement that was signed last week, is a really big deal. If we turn that into fruition with the meal there, Thailand is another one where we see a good opportunity. All of these places where generally the country needs to be buying more stuff from the United States to balance their trade situation, U.S. agricultural products, in particular, U.S. soy, because of the good protein demand that Rosalind mentioned, is a great thing for them to buy.

Our job is to make sure that USTR is thinking about that, so when we submit comments, when they're always continually asking for things, we're providing a lot of information about the opportunities in these countries. Then once the agreements get made, to make sure that we're there making the connection between our U..S exporters and importers in those countries.  I see good opportunity coming out of those agreements.

What are some of the biggest challenges or  headwinds the participants of your Soy Excellence Centers  face once they go through the program?

Babb: In a lot of these developing countries, there's not a lot of training available. Our participants don't have to necessarily be college graduates, but we have college graduates from local universities, even advanced degrees that go through this program. 

In the Americas region, so Central America, Mexico, we actually work with the HR departments, and they're sharing information to employees that they would like to go through the virtual training. If there is an in-person, they'll even financially support some of that training. The industries involved are seeing a clear benefit from lower costs sometimes.

In Nigeria, we had somebody that helped their feed mill become GMP (good manufacturing practice) certified—the first one in Nigeria. This helped that process. There are many examples all over the world of how we can reach them at a fairly low cost, virtually, and train, and talk about U.S. soy –how to use more soy, but here's why you need to use more U.S. soy.

How is USSEC differentiating soy in an effort to sell more when cost is a first consideration, not quality?

Sutter: Quality directly impacts cost. So, in a cost‑competitive environment we win by helping buyers understand the value offered from U.S. Soy and how that shows up in their bottom line.

Even if a competitor is cheaper initially on a cost‑per‑ton basis, the value U.S. Soy adds to operations typically offsets, and even surpasses, those savings. So, for USSEC, it comes down to effectively translating the metrics of the U.S. Soy value advantage which we frame around three core pillars: nutrition, sustainability, and reliability. 

On nutrition, it’s about looking beyond crude protein. U.S. soybean meal typically offers a stronger profile of digestible amino acids – especially lysine and other essential amino acids that directly drive growth and feed efficiency – than soy from many competing origins. When you translate those nutritional advantages into cost‑per‑unit‑of‑gain, U.S. Soy’s “on‑paper” premium often turns into a net savings in the feed mill and in the barn. 

On sustainability, U.S. Soy has a clear, verifiable advantage. The U.S. Soy Sustainability Assurance Protocol (SSAP) gives buyers independently benchmarked assurance, aligned with globally recognized frameworks that many of our customers already use. For our buyers selling into markets where sustainability metrics are part of the transaction, SSAP certificates help them meet downstream requirements with fewer hurdles and can open doors to new customers or even allow them to capture a higher price.

Reliability is about risk management and the confidence that it creates in our customers’ operations. When buyers choose U.S. Soy, they’re getting beans and meal with consistently low levels of heat and mechanical damage compared to soy of other origins, which protects oil quality, amino acid availability, and flowability in the feed mill. Fewer quality surprises mean fewer handling issues, more predictable performance, and ultimately a return on investment that U.S. Soy buyers can count on year after year.

The real U.S. Soy advantage is that we are more than a commodity. We are a reliable, sustainable, value-adding partner — not just another line on a cost-per-ton comparison.

Written by Bethany Baratta.

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