Farm Factor - KS Soybean Update - Bob Haselwood - Dec. 8, 2015

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• published: 14 Dec 2015
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(Jamie) Welcome back to Farm Factor and the Kansas Soybean Update. (Greg) This is the Kansas Soybean Update. It's brought to you by the Kansas Soybean Commission. The Soybean Checkoff, Progress Powered by Kansas Farmers. Bob Haselwood, a Berryton, Kansas, soybean farmer and serves as Chair of the United Soybean Board joins us. Bob, for USB it's an exciting time, but also a time where you're looking at the future and a new long range, strategic plan. And there are several changes that are going to be coming up, but let's focus on some of the main changes that USB has in their new long range, strategic plan. (Bob) You know when we started our new long range, strategic plan, we started with a clean sheet of paper. And we tried to look at what we felt we needed to do as the United Soybean Board, what we felt down the road in five years or so, where we thought the industry might be going. And what we could do to help improve soybean farmer's profitability. You know one of the things when you have a promotion board and it's a commodity, one of the things that's going to happen when you promote your product and increase consumption, you also benefit your competitors. And that's one of the things that we tried to focus on is what we can do to distinguish U.S. soy from the rest of the world. And you know in the past we've started working on high oleic soybeans promoting that because we had lost oil share in the market in the eatable oil market and high oleic is one way to help get that back. And we're still going to continue working on that. But you know we're looking at ways now to improve the nutritional value of the soybean meal. Some of our customers claim there's an advantage to U.S. soy over South American meal. And even though the protein level might not be as good, there's other things that help to make it a better product for them. We are continuing to look at those things and then we're also talking with researchers whether it be public or private, on things that we could do to possibly help raise the protein content in soybeans. (Greg) One of the hard parts about that is addressing that current business environment. We've seen it change, but next year it could change, that moving target I'm sure is hard to judge right at the moment. (Bob) Yea, when you look at the business climate and you don't know what mergers and acquisitions are gonna do. But you know we try to create partnerships with the private industry to help promote that. That's another part of our plan you know, we've looked at U.S. infrastructure sometimes or transportation infrastructure you know, it's got some questions. And we're gonna try working with some groups to see if there are things that we can do through public/private partnerships to work on the locks and dams issue, things that we're gonna be looking at that. And we're starting to talk about a pilot program on that now. (Greg) Bob, as always, appreciate your time. Thanks. (Bob) Thanks Greg. (Greg) That's Bob Haselwood who serves as the Chair of the United Soybean Board, a Berryton, Kansas, soybean producer here on the Kansas Soybean Update. It's brought to you by the Kansas Soybean Commission. The Soybean Checkoff, Progress Powered by Kansas Farmers. Learn more at kansassoybeans.org. For Kansas soybeans I'm Greg Akagi. (Jamie) Hope you enjoyed this week’s Kansas Soybean Update. Stay tuned as Duane visits with Tom Buis about the environmental aspects of ethanol.