Where is soybean found

Livestock producers found that soybean meal was the preferred source of protein at an affordable cost. Chickens, turkeys, cattle and hogs were fed diets containing tens of millions of tons of soybean meal each year. One of the great scientific advances in agriculture was the improvement of the soybean in the s to withstand herbicides.

This meant that farmers could control weeds without killing the soybean plant. This development resulted in new production practices that are gaining acceptance around the world. Farmers in food deficit regions of Africa and Asia are realizing that this technology will feed many more people on the same amount of land. The technology has allowed U. Thirty-one U. The top producers are the states of Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Minnesota. These midwestern states have deep, rich soils and relatively cool summer nights.

North Carolina in comparison produces about one-tenth of the volume of soybeans produced in Iowa. But North Carolina produces many other crops besides soybean.

A typical North Carolina soybean farmer might also grow corn, wheat, cotton, tobacco, sweet potatoes or peanuts. North Carolina has one of the largest pork and poultry industries in the world. Regarding the use or trade of pirate seeds they were critical and denied any participation in this market. This illegal practice According to the Law of Cultivars Protection, number of may be reflected in lower production costs while becoming a potential threat for producers. These threats include less productivity, lower plant vigor and phytosanitary vulnerabilities as pointed by the interviewed group, but also highlighted by previous studies Lima and Bueno, ; Ternus, ; Tonello, , making the use of pirate seeds a risky decision.

Pirate seeds have no guarantees of productivity standards, minimum germination rates or resistance to diseases and pests. Furthermore, there is the risk of incurring fines and legal sanctions if caught by legal authorities.

Producers willing to use pirate seeds of soybean accept higher risks to decrease production costs. Thus, the use of pirate seeds in the soybean business reflects the ways producers are looking to prevail on the technological treadmill, which otherwise cyclically increases seed prices by the appeal of delivering new and necessary advances. This is an important action to support producers with and without their own storage, increasing trust on the producers' side.

During day-to-day operations producers tend to use family labor and some hired workers. These workers and family members need to be trained in machinery management, seed and soil preparation, and crop management. Thus, as observed during fieldwork, the professionalization and entrepreneurship required by producers to survive in a competitive market sometimes drains the producer's resources and time away from the land.

This example strengthens the argument that producers acting individually have little to no influence or power against transnational companies and the prevailing international political economy situation, pushing them to become organized in representative groups able to act more like bigger players in the global market. In this way producers can avoiding or escape the soybean trap. By the time of the meeting they explained strategies to avoid robberies of agricultural inputs e.

To obtain expected or greater than expected productivity, producers are raising awareness about decision-making processes related to planted areas.

As mentioned in section Farm-Scale Operations to Increase Bargaining Power and to Ensure Credit Access, all farms are divided into multiple plots with different conditions e.

After years of soybean production and experience in Mato Grosso see Table 1 , the producers in our sample demonstrate the ability to identify the best plot areas on their farms i. In those areas, they are willing to keep high levels of investments of capital and technology e. Nevertheless, they also recognize the areas with lower productivity, which they corresponded to sandy soils.

Thus, from our sample, producers are taking the decision of not planting soybean every year on the entire land available for use. Two producers interviewed have used this practice for many years and others have tried it in the last crop year or are preparing to adopt it in the next seasons. Producers from our sample are sparing areas of lower productivity for recovery and preparation for longer rotation plans, such as planting soybean only every 2—3 years.

Others are avoiding the use of maize after soybean in those areas to diminish the land use pressure. In these cases, as a second-crop, some producers adopt other plants only to provide green cover to protect the soil. These management decisions observed from the fieldwork data are justified by perceptions of productivity loss or stagnation during the last decade.

This situation, noted by informants from the University UFMT and producers in our sample, but also corroborated by the National Company of Food and Supply CONAB, b is because, among other reasons, of the increasing trend in maize production as a second crop which has pushed producers to plant short-season soybean varieties affecting productivity standards to enable two crops in the same agricultural year.

To expand soybean fields in new areas, according the interviewed producers, they must cultivate the grain for 2 or 3 years with low productivity, resulting in uncultivated lands mainly on previous degraded pastures before reaching higher yields.

These first years of soybean cultivation in new areas require some land preparation, such as improving soil fertility, to reach the necessary conditions to produce soybean with high productivity. During this period, they invest in production while reducing the farm's total productivity i.

Thus, beyond the productivity of each specific plot or the potential production increase by area expansion, producers seem to be switching focus to the farm's total productivity. As an example, Figure 4 shows the rationale brought about by interviewees of how a producer can increase the farm's total productivity without expanding area or increasing productivity within a specific plot, by not planting in the less productive areas.

Figure 4. Simulation of a producer's decision-making process at the farm level to produce soybean in the total area available or only in areas according to historical productivity results.

Each bag represents 60 kg of soybean—Brazilian measure. This example, developed based on the producers' rationale evidenced during the interviews, simplifies a very complex decision-making process at the farm level. However, it illustrates how producers can avoid unnecessary losses in average productivity not by increasing productivity in some areas to offset others which may increase production costs , but by avoiding planting in lower productivity areas.

These areas are usually left fallow, rotated e. The example in Figure 4 illustrates the need to overcome the narrow view of ever larger scales of production typical from the economies of scale perspective as the only means to achieve the best possible economic results.

During interviews, we found that all producers recognized the need to become educated at least to the undergraduate level, to keep up with the changes in their business. This understanding about the need for education reflects their view of agricultural production as a business that requires the use of technology and the knowledge provided by agronomists, business managers, and other consultants.

It requires management strategy and a deep understanding of agricultural technology to enable, as they argued, a reliable way to take decisions in order to succeed as producers and avoid the many traps within the soybean supply chain. In this study, based on literature review and qualitative fieldwork, we found that the soybean producers of our sample 18 in total, but in a situation we expect to be similar to many of the State's producers recognize traps and bottlenecks, which may lead them to decreasing profit margins and increasing dependency on large agribusiness players e.

These producers have found no apparent way to get off the treadmills, but they do take actions to attempt to avoid being trapped within the soybean supply chain. This brings some valuable lessons to reflect on with regards to the currently dominant large-scale capital-intensive activities. Lesson 1: Sectoral actions e. In this regard, the role of educational and agricultural associations is key to enabling soybean producers to deal with business management challenges and to empower them to become more active agents.

Additionally, soybean producers are finding useful the strategy of acting as group e. Lesson 2: Producers have found that to achieve satisfactory productivity results they must carefully consider variation between multiple land plots of their farms in order to take decisions on where best to plant soybean according to historic results and natural conditions e.

This strategy has proved a feasible way to increase total soybean productivity, leading to higher profit margins without the need of expanding planted area. Lesson 3: The increased share of private companies in the seed development market through the s was an important driver of increases in production costs, according to interviewees section Technology-Driven Decision-Making. Lesson 4: On-farm storage provides opportunities for producers to increase their profit margins by enabling decisions about the best time to trade the grain e.

This congestion delays producers' harvest plans, potentially compromises grain quality, and increases reliance on trucks, gas and workers, all of which can lower their profits. The datasets generated for this study are available on request to the corresponding author. The investigators working in the project obtained informed consent from any person interviewed, and the information has been treated as confidential, with access only available to the principal investigators.

RB wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All the other authors wrote several contributions in different sections of the manuscript. All authors contributed to manuscript revision, read and approved the submitted version. We also acknowledge the National Science Foundation, through award numbers and to Emilio Moran, which contributed to the support of this research. However, none of these agencies should be held responsible for the views expressed herein. They are the sole responsibility of the authors.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. We are grateful to all farmers and stakeholders interviewed along the fieldwork of The opinions expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the authors. Google Scholar. Projeto Comercial Binimelis, R. Geoforum 40, — Campos, M.

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Gutierrez, A. Deconstructing Indian cotton: weather, yields, and suicides. Europe IBGE IMEA Lima, D. By the s, the discovery of phytochemicals in soybeans — thought to combat certain forms of cancer — lent soy, itself, the aura of healthfulness, helping to drive a market in soy milk, soy-protein bars and a growing array of health foods. In , the soybean ranked among the top 10 crops in the United States, with , producers nationwide.

Because of the dominance of the crop in the country and the fact that China consumes more soybean products than any other nation, it also became a prime target for tariffs. In the trade duel between the U. While the tariffs were taking their toll on U. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you.

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