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U.S. soybean farmers and the companies represented by the National Oilseed Processors Association take pride in cutting our carbon footprint by 19% in less than a decade while boosting yields significantly. At the same time, U.S. Soy production and use, including exports, now contribute $124 billion to the U.S. economy. From farm to fork, oilseed to consumer, sustainable soy solutions isn’t just a catchphrase, it’s a way of life. It’s in our DNA as farmers to improve the land, and it’s how we think about our product in reaching a global population. The release of a new Life Cycle Assessment captures the significant progress of the U.S. soybean industry and offers new metrics as state and national regulators update their greenhouse gas models and databases. It also provides a roadmap for further improvements from farm to facility to operational performance to provide for future growth opportunities and showing our customers both at home and abroad the benefits of using U.S. Soy products.
These data enable regulators and other parties to account for the strides our industry has made over time and more accurately inform the downstream environmental profiles of our essential soy-based products. But the sustainability of those products originates on the farm, and our entire U.S. Soy system starts at a local zip code. Our half-million growers across more than 30 states serve as the bedrock for continuous improvement through regenerative and climate-conscious practices.
These aggregated cultivation data from 454 farms across 16 states, in addition to operations data (for soybean meal, crude soy oil, and refined soy oil) from 52 soybean processors and 27 soy oil refiners across 18 states, shows the real story of our impact. The data itself helps us build upon existing partnerships within the soy supply chain and explore new opportunities for U.S. Soy. Building these relationships will strengthen our positioning in the broader bioeconomy. This includes using renewable agriculture commodities, like U.S. Soy, to produce food, feed, fuel, and other industrial materials and products to boost supply chain resiliency.
In addition to a 19% carbon decrease for U.S. soybeans since 2015, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) jointly commissioned by the United Soybean Board (USB) and National Oilseed Processors Association (NOPA) found carbon reductions for all U.S. Soy commodities. This includes a 6% reduction in U.S. soybean meal, a 22% decrease in U.S. crude soy oil, and an 8% decrease in U.S. refined soy oil from co-located processing facilities and refineries.
How did we do it?
Evolving technologies, implemented with an eye on sustainability, have enabled farmers and processors to adopt new practices that improve efficiencies and decrease U.S. Soy’s carbon footprint. With these tactics, U.S. soybean farmers have made significant carbon reductions all while increasing bushel-per-acre yields by an average of 24%.
The soybean cultivation and harvesting process has the greatest impact on the carbon intensity of soybean meal, crude soy oil, and refined soy oil. But we’ve seen all our farmers make tremendous progress in climate-smart production – whether it’s our USB Chair Steve Reinhard in Ohio practicing no-till and planting rye, barley, or red clover as a cover crop to improve soil health, our Wisconsin farmer-leader Nancy Kavazanjian using a solar array that powers their farm shop; our Indiana farmer-leader Tom Griffiths using filter strips, grass waterways, field borders, and windbreaks to protect soil, water and air quality; or our Michigan farmer-leader Laurie Isley who uses precision agriculture techniques to adjust nutrient application according to soil type and fertility levels, which minimizes nutrient loss. And this barely scratches the surface of how our farmers innovate to grow a more resilient soybean.
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Soybean crush facilities’ commitment to sustainability was also evident in the LCA. In addition to benefiting from carbon reductions to soybeans, market conditions made it beneficial for a number of NOPA member facilities to convert from coal to natural gas as a fuel source for their boilers, leveraging the latest technology to lower their energy impacts. Further, processors are in lockstep with new U.S. regulatory requirements, setting the industry on a path to meeting additional carbon reduction, all while increasing crush capacity to meet demand. Since 2021, we’ve announced well over $6 billion in crushing capacity investments and are now on track to increase capacity by more than 30% without impacting food or land use.
The LCA shows that we’ve made significant strides since previous findings from 2015 and 2010, helping us better assess and understand our sector’s environmental impacts throughout the entire soybean life cycle over time and to determine additional actions that can be implemented to further lower our environmental impact in the future.
Simply put, our commitment to sustainability, as shown by the LCA, means better value and a sustainable baseline for the entire soy supply chain. Our soybeans have myriad uses beyond the protein-rich meal we need for human and animal nutrition. Vegetable oil supports food manufacturing, and U.S. soybeans are increasingly used as a dependable feedstock for biodiesel, renewable diesel, and sustainable aviation fuel. These biofuels, derived from biomass, play a significant role in reducing carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) greenhouse gas emissions and the carbon intensity of transportation fuels in use today.
By growing U.S. soybeans with the climate top of mind and implementing processing, manufacturing, and transportation changes to boost efficiency, the resulting lower-carbon soy products can help generate more cash flow for U.S. soybean farmers, processors, local economies, and other industry stakeholders.
Where do we go from here? The new LCA doesn’t mean that our work is done. New technology will continue to drive our commitment to environmental stewardship and help us reduce our carbon impact as we continue our mission to create value for our farmers, processors, and, most importantly, our customers.
About the authors: Lucas Lentsch is CEO of the United Soybean Board (USB) and Kailee Tkacz Buller is President and CEO of the National Oilseed Processors Association (NOPA).