SDSRPC director renews relationships at Soy Connext

South Dakota Soybean Research & Promotion Council (SDSRPC) Director Mike McCranie didn’t just make new connections at Soy Connext, which took place Aug. 19-21 in San Francisco. He also reconnected with international buyers he had met on previous trade missions.

“What’s always neat is running into people you’ve met,” McCranie said. “You have so much to talk about and your relationships become friendships.”

The conference, billed as the Global U.S. Soy Summit, was hosted by the U.S. Soybean Export Council and welcomed more than 400 international soy customers from over 60 countries. SDSRPC’s membership in Northern Soy Marketing (NSM), which had a booth at the conference, provided ample opportunities for building relationships.

“They set a record on attendance,” said McCranie, who also serves on NSM’s board of directors. “The ratio of purchasers and sellers wasn’t quite half and half, but it was close.”

International customers from Southeast Asia have long been a focus for NSM’s messaging.

“We are very competitive in the Southeast Asia market,” said McCranie. “Northern-grown soybeans leaving the U.S. through the Pacific Northwest can often times beat the price of beans that have the extra cost of going either around the bottom of South America or through the canal.”

But at the core of NSM’s messaging was the nutritional value of northern-grown soy for livestock feed.

“Our soybeans in the northern area have a superior amino acid profile relative to soybeans grown elsewhere,” said NSM Chair Glen Groth, who was unable to attend the conference. “We have clean beans, and we transport them in an efficient manner.”

Traditionally, soybean quality has been based upon crude protein content which is only an estimate of the total amino acids based on the level of nitrogen detected. Therefore, in an effort to change the language of soybean quality, NSM encourages the adoption of the critical amino acid value (CAAV); CAAV is a calculation of the sum of the five most critical amino acids – lysine, cysteine, methionine, threonine and tryptophan.

“Everyone I talked to said that our quality was better,” McCranie said. “Another word that kept coming up was ‘consistent.’ As a soybean grower, the quality that we have is very important.”

As the NSM delegation, which also included University of Minnesota Extension soybean agronomist and NSM consultant Seth Naeve, headed back to the Upper Midwest, they reflected on a successful event.

“Getting facetime with international customers is critical,” said Katelyn Engquist, NSM market development project manager. “Soy Connext was an excellent opportunity for us to actively engage with the people who are making purchasing decisions.”