Ingredients
Below normalSoybean meal price
USDA soybean meal board price per ton, national fob plant median, with its cost per unit of protein and energy
Data through Aug 17, 2026 · source last checked Aug 27, 2026 · page revised Aug 27, 2026
Cite
- national median across 7 fob plant regions
About this data
- Source
- USDA AMS feedstuffs board
- Series
- Soybean meal board price
- Basis
- FOB plant preferred, national cross-region median
- Geography
- National
- Unit
- $/ton
- Calculation
- Weekly cross-region median
- Last observation
- Aug 17, 2026
- Update frequency
- Weekly
Now $338/ton (national median across 7 fob plant regions) as of Aug 17, 2026, USDA, up 4% on the week. Protein costs $0.355 per lb of crude protein (100% of soybean meal); energy $0.231 per lb of TDN (220% of corn).
Soybean meal priced at $338 a ton as of Aug 17, up 3.9 percent on the week. Year over year it is up 13.8 percent, though it sits 11.9 percent below the 4-year median.
| Period | Current | Prior | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week over week | $338/ton | $325/ton | +3.9% |
| Month over month | $338/ton | $345/ton | -2.1% |
| Year over year | $338/ton | $297/ton | +13.8% |
| vs 4-yr median | $338/ton | $383/ton | -11.9% |
Previous weeks
Week of Aug 10, 2026
Soybean meal fell to $325/ton, down 3.8 percent from a month prior. Versus the 4-year median of $386/ton, it runs 15.7 percent lower. Year-over-year, the meal sits 14.4 percent higher.
An earlier week
Soybean meal eased to $326/ton, down 1.1% on the week, though 17.9% above last year. At 19.1% below the 4-year median, it prices cheaper than recent norms. It anchors protein at $0.342 per pound of crude protein and prices at 224% of corn on energy.
An earlier week
Soybean meal is at $345 per ton, up 2 percent on the week and 40 percent year-over-year, though it sits 18 percent below its 4-year median. It sets the crude-protein benchmark at $0.362 per pound of crude protein. On an energy basis, it prices at 236 percent of corn.
About Soybean meal price
Soybean meal is a protein feed, fed to raise a ration's crude-protein content. On a dry-matter basis it runs about 53.5% crude protein and 82% TDN, roughly 0.94 Mcal of net energy for lactation per pound of dry matter, at about 89% dry matter as fed. Those figures come from feedtables.com (INRA/CIRAD/AFZ), soybean meal 48%, citing NRC 2001. SBM-48. TDN clusters 81-82% (NRC-2001/dairy method) vs 87-88% (older NRC-Beef-1996 tables); 82 is the dairy-relevant midpoint. The leaderboard uses them to convert this week's board price into a cost per pound of protein and per pound of energy, so it can be ranked against corn and soybean meal. Prices are quoted per ton, and the cheapest board price is not the cheapest fed price once freight and moisture are counted (see the FOB-vs-delivered guide). Soybean meal is the protein benchmark this whole board is measured against, crushed from soybeans at plants concentrated across the Corn Belt and the Mississippi Delta. Crush economics increasingly run on the oil side of the ledger: renewable diesel and biodiesel demand for soybean oil has pulled new crush capacity online, with meal arriving as the co-product of a decision made mostly for the oil. Export demand, historically led by China, competes with the US animal feed industry for the same beans, the largest buyer spanning poultry, swine and dairy rations. Its amino acid balance, lysine especially, beats almost every other plant meal here, the real reason it sets the standard others are priced against.