This week marks the annual meeting of the United Soybean Board in St. Louis where new appointees are sworn in by USDA and 2020 leadership is elected. The organization’s farmer-directors elected Jim Carroll III from Brinkley, Arkansas, as Chair at the annual board meeting
USB 2019 Chair Keith Tapp, a soybean farmer from Sebree, Kentucky says there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes for the benefit of soybean farmers and the end users of soy products. A lot of the effort is ensuring a message of sustainability gets through.
“Anymore it just seems like the mother is interested to know that food is going to be safe and that it’s going to be there,” he said. “Our end users, our buyers across the seas, they’re wanting to know that we’re going to be sustainable. We’ve proved that in that 95 percent of our farmers are using those sustainable measures through conservation practices and that type of thing on their farm.”
USB has been working hard at developing emerging and basic markets as good markets for U.S. soy. Tapp says the reason is simple. There is competition.
“Strong competition,” he adds. “We have a better bean than any other country, but it’s not always the cheapest bean. Therefore, we’ve been looking and expanding those markets. Always looking for new uses and we’re excited about the new high oleic bean that’s been developed. We know that it can be grown anywhere in the country and it does not have a yield drag. The oil itself for a cooking oil is a healthier oil than some of the others like palm oil, and we hope to regain some of that market.”
Tapp explained the “awesome” industrial uses of soy.
“We’re finding so many ways and places it can find in like asphalt. I think Indiana is even using some soy-based asphalt, just recently laid some.”
Hear more in the full interview from November:Keith Tapp-USB
There are 78 farmer-directors working on behalf of U.S. soybean farmers and their checkoff investments, and Wednesday United Soybean Board also elected nine directors to serve alongside Carroll on the Executive Committee.
Dan Farney, Vice Chair — Illinois
David Iverson, Secretary — South Dakota
Meagan Kaiser, Treasurer — Missouri
Woody Green — South Carolina
Tom Oswald — Iowa
Mark Seib — Indiana
Belinda Burrier — Maryland
Ralph Lott II — New York
Andy Fabin — Pennsylvania
Three farmer-directors were elected to serve on the Strategic Management Committee:
Doug Winter — Illinois
Ed Lammers — Nebraska
Philip Good — Mississippi
“We’ve made great strides to innovate beyond the bushel and infuse every opportunity we can into growing markets and creating new uses for soybeans,” said Carroll. “We have a lot to be proud of but also have tremendous potential to further demand as we continue our progress through wise and strategic investments. One of my priorities as Chair is to recognize the performance and sustainability of U.S. Soy and show our customers its many capabilities as a renewable alternative.”
