Northern-Grown Soybeans: The Right Choice for Vietnam’s Poultry Growers

Soybeans grown in northern states, including South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota, are being marketed to soybean and soybean meal buyers in Vietnam. Poultry nutrition consultant Bob Swick recently accompanied a delegation representing Northern Soy Marketing (NSM) to southern Vietnam, which imports soybeans and soybean meal to feed chickens.

“Vietnam is a very quick growing country with a lot of young people, and the animal feed industry is growing very quickly,” said Swick, speaking to the South Dakota Soybean Network during a stopover he made in Singapore following the NSM Vietnam mission. “And they use just a lot of soybean meal and soybeans.”

Swick, a native Chicagoan, who decades ago became an animal science professor in Australia, helps market northern grown soybeans to Southeast Asian buyers, which is what he did on this latest trip.

“I was talking about how good soybean meal is made from soybeans that grow in the north part of the U.S. and are shipped out of the Pacific Northwest,” said Swick.

The competing supplier – Brazil – touts soybean meal that they say has more crude protein. So what, responds Swick, who knows chickens inside and out. Without getting too far in the weeds, Swick explains that soybeans grown in South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota – the states whose Soybean Checkoffs make up Northern Soy Marketing – have a higher ratio of essential digestible amino acids, with the emphasis on essential and digestible.

“That's an advantage because when the chickens eat feed made with that meal, they're not getting a bunch of excess non-essential amino acids that the chicken body has to process and get rid of the nitrogen,” explained Swick. The same, he says, is true for pigs and aquaculture, both of which are raised in abundance in that region.

An additional plus in marketing U.S.-raised soybeans for Vietnam’s aquaculture industry is that farm-raised fish are a big export item from Vietnam. The fact that most U.S.-grown soybeans are shipped with a Soy Sustainability Assurance Protocol (SSAP) certificate provides a quantitative measure for buyers in Vietnam seeking to meet sustainability commitments.

Between Brazil and the U.S., Vietnam imports more soybeans and soybean meal in a year than are produced in Minnesota, according to Swick.

“So it's a big market for soy,” he said, “and it's a big potential market for northern soy from South Dakota and Minnesota and whatever else goes out through the Pacific Northwest.”