By Marty Matlock, PhD, PE, BCEE
The success of soybeans as a global crop reflects its value, resilience, and low environmental impact. Maintaining the highly sustainable quality of this important crop means continually improving these characteristics. U.S. soybeans are sustainable in part because of the aggressive adoption by American farmers of technologies that improve efficiencies and reduce impacts. These technologies include crop genetics, field cultivation, pest control, automation, precision agriculture, and post-harvest quality control.
What is Sustainability?
In short, sustainability is the ability to continue to do what you are doing. The history of soybean production provides insight into the sustainability of this crop. It has been one of the most successful and sustainable crops in human history, having originated in China 4,500 years ago. The characteristics of a crop that make it sustainable include its nutritional value, resiliency, and impact on the land.1
Soybean seeds have the highest protein content (40 percent by weight) and among the highest gross output of oil (20 percent by weight) of any crop.2 In addition, the soybean plant fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere, which enhances soil health and fertility without the addition of commercial nitrogen. Resiliency, the ability to produce high yields under changing conditions, is clearly demonstrated by the diversity of locations where soybeans are now produced. Today the top three producing areas for soybeans are the U.S. (116 million MT, 35 percent), Brazil (107 million MT, 28 percent), and Argentina (57 million MT, 18 percent). China is a distant fourth, at just under 14 million MT (less than five percent).3
The ability to produce a high value crop that is versatile and adaptable makes soybeans attractive to farmers. The ability to produce this crop without degrading land and water resources makes it truly sustainable.
Measuring the impacts of soybean production on environmental systems is not a simple process. To help accomplish this task, two organizations spearheaded the development of the U.S. Sustainability Assurance Protocol (SSAP) in 2013. The organizations were the U.S. Soybean Export Council (USSEC) and the United Soybean Board (USB). The protocol was developed to demonstrate soybean sustainability practices in the U.S. for international markets and to support continuous improvement in soybean production at home.4,5
The SSAP documents the American system of conservation laws and regulations combined with implementation of best management practices by the nearly 300,000 soybean producers in the United States. Most of these soybean farmers participate in financial and conservation programs with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and thus are subject to random audits to insure they are complying with best management practices on the land.5
The SSAP does not certify individual producers; rather, it is a certified, aggregate approach to the sustainability performance of all U.S. soybean production. The goal is to improve the sustainability of all domestic producers.
Measuring sustainability requires the expertise of many people across many disciplines. In 2006, an organization was started to help provide that expertise and lay the ground work for establishment of the sustainability protocol.
“Field to Market – the Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture,” is a multi-stakeholder organization that develops and analyzes science-based measurements of sustainability indicators.6 Field to Market has over 150 members, including conservation organizations, industries, and representatives from across the U.S. agricultural supply chain. USB was a founding member, and along with USSEC, has provided Field to Market with expertise and support in measuring soybean sustainability metrics.
Field to Market publishes an annual report on the environmental sustainability of major agronomic crops including corn for grain and silage, cotton, potatoes, rice, soybeans, wheat, barley, peanuts, and sugar beets. The environmental indicators include land use, soil conservation, irrigation water use, energy use, and greenhouse gas emissions.
Analysis of publicly available data from USDA for U.S. soybeans showed that total production and planted area of soybeans increased from 1980 to 2015. This yield improvement drove improvements in efficiency metrics like irrigation water use, energy use, and greenhouse gas emissions on a per-bushel basis. Soil conservation improved dramatically from 1980 to 2015, with soil loss per acre declining 47 percent.6
Farmers remain vigilant against emerging and expanding disease as well as unintended impacts from production practices. Organizations like Field to Market, and programs like the SSAP, give U.S. soybean producers the insights, guidance, and tools to insure that soybeans remain a sustainable crop for years to come.
References
1. Shurtleff, W., Huang, H.T. and Aoyagi, A., 2014. History of Soybeans and Soyfoods in China and Taiwan, and in Chinese Cookbooks, Restaurants, and Chinese Work with Soyfoods Outside China (1024 BCE to 2014): Extensively Annotated Bibliography and Sourcebook, Including Manchuria, Hong Kong and Tibet. Soyinfo Center.
2. Singh, G. ed., 2010. The soybean: botany, production and uses. CABI.
3. Meade, B., McBride, W.D., Puricelli, E., Valdes, C., Hoffman, L., Foreman, L. and Dohlman, E., 2016. Corn and Soybean Production Costs and Export Competitiveness in Argentina, Brazil, and the United States.
4. USB, 2017. USB Sustainability Website,
http://unitedsoybean.org/topics/sustainability/
5. USSEC, 2017. Soybean Sustainability Assurance Protocol (SSAP), 2016.
https://ussec.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/20160531-SSAP-1.pdf
6. Field to Market: The Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture, 2016. Environmental and Socioeconomic Indicators for Measuring Outcomes of On Farm Agricultural Production in the United States (Third Edition). ISBN: 978-0-692-81902-9. https://fieldtomarket.org/