3 ms·

A lot of soy goes to animal feed and eating soy directly is a lot more efficient than giving it to a cow first.

Spooky23 8y ago
Feedlots mostly use corn, not soy. And again, my issue is with the agriculture policy that demands scale up agriculture. The government created these problems in search of low prices and other political goals. The dairy farm that i worked on as a kid had about 50 cows and didn’t have the impact that massive operations have, and grew a lot of its own fodder. Again it’s a stark difference... probably 100 dairy operations in my county when I was a kid, and I’d guest 12-20 now, most of whom are probably going to be gone in the next year.
- emp 8y ago
  The majority of soy goes to feeding animals ... http://www.wisoybean.org/news/soybean_facts.php http://www.wisoybean.org/news/soybean_facts.php
  - mikekchar 8y ago
    That says that the majority of soy meal goes to animal feed. I couldn't actually get the amount of soy beans used for animal feed. Perhaps you can find it. According to this [1], they were forecasting about 4,200 million bushels of soybeans being harvested in 2016 with nearly 2,000 million bushels being exported (about 47 percent according to the source). I tried to find a reputable source for soy bean use in the US and failed, but some sources I was able to find (mostly vegan activist groups) stated that 80% of soy bean use is for meal while 20% is for oil. Of the 80% used for meal, 97-98% is used for animal feed while 2-3% is used for food. As far as I can tell that means that if we round things up to the nearest 10%, about half of the soybeans grown are exported, 40% is used for animal feed (cattle, chickens and pigs) 10% for oil (of which some is cooking oil) and a negligible amount used directly for human consumption. Possible the parent was considering only cattle consumption because another source I found suggested that you don't want to feed cattle more than 15-25% of their diet on soy because they can't digest it. Chickens and pigs presumably don't have the same problem. I find it interesting that in truth the largest category of "use" for soybeans in the US is as an export trade good. I wasn't actually following the discussion above closely so I'm not sure how it impacts anything. However, it occurs to me that possibly the land could be put to better use. However it was also interesting to me that according to your source Wisconsin has 11K soybean growers over 1.6 million acres. That's an average farm size of 145 acres. As a person who grew up in the prairies of Canada but now lives in Japan, that seems to me to be both not so big and also gigantic :-) (I don't think I've ever seen a Japanese farm bigger than about 30 acres!) [1] - https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/soybeans-oil-crops/related-data-statistics/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/soybeans-oil-crops/rel...
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      Most of the soy exported to China is used for pigs, I think, about a 20% mix. See https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-trade-china-soymeal-insight/inside-chinas-strategy-in-the-soybean-trade-war-idUSKCN1OQ0D2 https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-trade-china-soymeal-i...

Feedlots mostly use corn, not soy. And again, my issue is with the agriculture policy that demands scale up agriculture. The government created these problems in search of low prices and other political goals. The dairy farm that i worked on as a kid had about 50 cows and didn’t have the impact that massive operations have, and grew a lot of its own fodder. Again it’s a stark difference... probably 100 dairy operations in my county when I was a kid, and I’d guest 12-20 now, most of whom are probably going to be gone in the next year.

emp 8y ago
The majority of soy goes to feeding animals ... http://www.wisoybean.org/news/soybean_facts.php http://www.wisoybean.org/news/soybean_facts.php
- mikekchar 8y ago
  That says that the majority of soy meal goes to animal feed. I couldn't actually get the amount of soy beans used for animal feed. Perhaps you can find it. According to this [1], they were forecasting about 4,200 million bushels of soybeans being harvested in 2016 with nearly 2,000 million bushels being exported (about 47 percent according to the source). I tried to find a reputable source for soy bean use in the US and failed, but some sources I was able to find (mostly vegan activist groups) stated that 80% of soy bean use is for meal while 20% is for oil. Of the 80% used for meal, 97-98% is used for animal feed while 2-3% is used for food. As far as I can tell that means that if we round things up to the nearest 10%, about half of the soybeans grown are exported, 40% is used for animal feed (cattle, chickens and pigs) 10% for oil (of which some is cooking oil) and a negligible amount used directly for human consumption. Possible the parent was considering only cattle consumption because another source I found suggested that you don't want to feed cattle more than 15-25% of their diet on soy because they can't digest it. Chickens and pigs presumably don't have the same problem. I find it interesting that in truth the largest category of "use" for soybeans in the US is as an export trade good. I wasn't actually following the discussion above closely so I'm not sure how it impacts anything. However, it occurs to me that possibly the land could be put to better use. However it was also interesting to me that according to your source Wisconsin has 11K soybean growers over 1.6 million acres. That's an average farm size of 145 acres. As a person who grew up in the prairies of Canada but now lives in Japan, that seems to me to be both not so big and also gigantic :-) (I don't think I've ever seen a Japanese farm bigger than about 30 acres!) [1] - https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/soybeans-oil-crops/related-data-statistics/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/soybeans-oil-crops/rel...
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    Most of the soy exported to China is used for pigs, I think, about a 20% mix. See https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-trade-china-soymeal-insight/inside-chinas-strategy-in-the-soybean-trade-war-idUSKCN1OQ0D2 https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-trade-china-soymeal-i...