Soybeans (US #1) price

Soybeans (US #1) are one of the two commodities every feedstuff is priced against. They are priced and tracked here, but they are not scored on the nutrient-cost screening board: no dry-matter-basis nutrient coefficient for them was verified against a primary extension or NRC table at build, and this site never guesses a coefficient. 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). Soybeans, US number one, is the other benchmark grain here, priced as the raw commodity rather than after crushing. Most of the crop that does not go to seed, food or export heads to a crush plant for meal and oil, but a real feed market exists too for whole beans fed directly, often roasted or extruded first, which cuts the share of protein broken down in the rumen and deactivates the trypsin inhibitor raw beans carry, letting a dairy capture the bean's fat and protein in one feed. Price is set in the export and crush markets first, moving on Midwest acreage, yield, Chinese export demand, and the same renewable-diesel-driven crush growth pulling on the complex's oil side.

Two bids set the bean price, and neither is a feeder's. USDA's Economic Research Service notes U.S. soybeans either go to domestic crush for meal and oil or are exported. The crusher's bid is bounded by the crush margin, which K-State Research and Extension defines as the combined value of the meal and oil from a bushel less the price of the beans. The export bid answers to Brazil, whose crop ERS notes exceeds the U.S. crop and which leads world soybean export trade. Importers make their own version of the crusher's choice: ERS notes Mexican feed manufacturers weigh crushing imported beans at home against importing meal outright (ERS). A livestock feeder buying whole beans pays what those buyers leave on the table.

Raw beans work for cattle, not for hogs or poultry. NDSU Extension notes whole soybeans can supply the total protein supplement for beef cattle and sheep, and that green, immature or frost-damaged beans can go to ruminants, held back by the oil and enzyme inhibitors raw soybeans carry. For pigs and poultry those inhibitors are the barrier: Feedipedia describes the trypsin inhibitors in raw beans blocking a digestive enzyme and causing poor performance, which is why monogastric rations take soybeans as heat-processed full-fat product or as meal. Raw beans also carry urease, and Feedipedia notes they should not go to ruminants on a diet that already contains urea.

Heat buys bypass protein, at a cost. NDSU notes roasting is not essential for cattle but cuts the share of protein degraded in the rumen, raising bypass protein, and makes beans more palatable and easier to store, while rolled or ground raw beans can go rancid if stored more than a week, especially in warm weather. That is the dairy case for roasted or extruded beans. K-State found whole soybeans paired with soybean hulls replaced both the fiber and energy of whole cottonseed in a lactating-cow ration, which puts the bean in competition with cottonseed as a fat-and-protein feed. The other side of the comparison is buying the pieces separately, soybean meal for protein and a fat source for energy, so a dairy's bid for whole beans is the bean price plus processing, weighed against that pair.