Soybeans in Midwestern Farming

Abstract

The rise of soy bean production from a few thousand acres in 1907 to nearly 12 million acres in 1948 has become an intriguing story in midwestern farming(1). During this period of increasing soy bean production, two important trends in soy bean culture are noticeable: first, a shift in soy bean concentration from the southern and eastern states to the midwestern or Corn Belt states, with Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri and Ohio as the leading soy bean producers(2); and secondly, a shift away from soy bean production for forage to soy bean production for beans 3). Several factors operating independently at times, but generally in unison, help to explain the prominence of soy beans in Corn Belt farming as well as the shifts in concentration and usage; (1) From 1925 to 1942, the people of the United States were consuming more fats and oils than they were producing, so imports from abroad were necessary(4); (2) The Tariff Act of 1930 placed an import duty on soy bean meal and cake and decreased the imports of these commodities materially(5); (3) The drought years of the middle 30's, plus damage due to insect pests, caused the Corn Belt farmer to turn to soy beans as a forage crop; (4) During the period of the Triple A, soy beans were considered a hay crop, filling the needs of the soil conservation program(6); (5) Pioneering work was done by the agricultural experiment stations in the midwest to secure varieties of soy beans suited to Corn Belt production(7); (6) The shift to powered equipment had already taken place in the Corn Belt so that soy beans came into a mature agriculture and hence the new crop could make use of the already mechanized equipment for preparing the land, planting, cultivating and harvesting. Later, the soy bean combine made the harvesting of the crop for beans a successful venture(s); (7) The suitability of Corn Belt soils and conditions of moisture and temperature to soy bean culture are about the same as for corn(9); (8) Soy beans were found to fit into crop rotation as practiced over most of the Corn Belt, especially since an alternate crop to replace oats seemed to be needed; (9) Research carried on at the United States Regional Soy Bean Industrial Products Laboratory then at Urbana, Illinois and by a number of pioneer industries such as that of the A. E. Staley Company of Decatur, Illinois pointed out many industrial possibilities for the beans besides their use as food and so helped to center the attention of the Corn Belt farmers on new reasons for raising soy beans; (10) The guarantees by several processing plants in the Corn Belt to pay certain minimum prices for soy beans delivered to their plants served to spur the production of soy