| ▲ | cogman10 5 hours ago |
| I expect other nations are still consuming US soybeans. China stopped because it was particularly negatively targeted by US tariff policy. But make no mistake, it has caused problems for farmers. The report from my small hometown farmers is that everything, except for beef, is down right now while the prices of inputs like fertilizer are high. Some of the farmers in my hometown have already sold their land to megacorp farmers in response because they simply can't survive. |
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| ▲ | embedding-shape 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| > I expect other nations are still consuming US soybeans But who? Compared to 2024, 2025 had almost half soybean exports it seems (https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/commodities/soybeans), I'm guessing most of the difference was China basically stopped buying soybeans. But it's a huge difference, yet production seems to be ramping up? I don't understand why they'd do that when the exports are going down? |
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| ▲ | cogman10 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I don't think it's ramping up [1]. Production is pretty static. And the chart you linked appears that exports for non-china countries is basically static. Were I to guess what's going on, but we'll see when the 2026 data comes in, is that soy farmers are likely storing a good portion of their bean harvest. Some will still have contracts that keep them farming. I suspect that many have switched over to other crops. [1] https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/production/2222000 | | |
| ▲ | bluGill 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I suspect that many have switched over to other crops. On the margins. However most farmers consider their soil health and long term plans. All good farmers (especially the mega corps) will intentionally plant most crops not based on what they expect out of the market next year, but what their soil needs. Most fields will not produce well if you don't consider what was grown on it last year and in turn what you want to produce next year. A few fields (millions of acres worth, but still only a few) there are options and those will adjust, but for the vast majority you have to follow a long term plan or your soil will fail and bankrupt you long term. Even the fields that do have options, it is just this year, and next they will have to return to a long term plan with no option. That where I live you have go [corn, corn, soybeans] or [corn, soybeans, corn], but [corn, corn, corn] is not an option. (I'm not aware of anyone doing two years of soybeans but maybe it happens) | | |
| ▲ | cogman10 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Most fields will not produce well if you don't consider what was grown on it last year and in turn what you want to produce next year. I've never worked at a megacorp farm, but my observation is that the majority of farmers aren't thinking like this. Granted it might be different because the crops around me which are most commonly grown are wheat, barley, and hay. IDK the effects of soybeans/corn on soil and it's possible they have a much more pronounced effect. For wheat, barley, hay, most the farmers I know will plant it YoY and use fertilizer to counteract soil deficiencies. Crop rotation, AFAIK, is mostly employed to reduce the need for fertilizer. It definitely is a problem because farmers tend to over-fertilize which can cause nasty problems the runoff water. I also expect this will likely become something a lot more farmers start to practice as fertilizer prices spike. | | |
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| ▲ | kipchak 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | There's a risk of food prices increasing across the board and shortages in poorer countries if fertilizer exports stay restricted, or in other words increased demand for soybeans in the later half of 2026. |
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| ▲ | fullstop 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| It wouldn't surprise me, at all, if the soybeans rotted away with no consumers. |
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| ▲ | cogman10 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | One of the wild things about farming is that crop storage works a lot better than what you can do at home. They have it down to an exact science, the temperature, humidity, etc of the crop in question and how long it can be stored for. On reddit, some farmers have cited 1 to 1 and 1/2 years of storage. [1] I suspect that a large portion of these soybeans will be stored with the hope that the market gets better in the future (I've never farmed soybeans. We did wheat and hay). Potatoes and apples are the same way. For Potatoes, they'll measure for hotspots throughout the year to make sure there's not rotting going on in the core, but assuming that doesn't happen, they can be stored for a very long time in giant potato piles. Hay is weird. Fermentation is actually a desirable thing because it releases nutrients (and the cows LOVE it). It makes storage super easy. I've had multi-year old hay bales that we've fed to cows. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/farming/comments/113t3nx/how_long_c... |
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