Polish Soybean Meal Users Understand the value of US Soybean Meal

5 October 2009

On September 24th, the American Soybean Association met with 23 Polish importers, feed associations, feed mill compounders and soy meal end users to present the differences in soybean meal by origin.  Mark W. Andersen, Regional Director Europe for ASA-IM (Netherlands) presented the reasons why research of this manner would assist the feed industry in Poland. USDA's Agricultural Counselor in Poland, Eric Wenberg, said "other feeds don't match the value, and nutrient benefits of American soybeans."

The research presented from Dr. Johann Fickler of Evonik/Degussa (Germany), showed that digestible energy values and amino acid profiles are different and US soybean meal had a better nutrient content for their price than other feeds.  Based on research studies from European Universities and Research Centers, Dr. Gonzalo Mateos, Polytechnical University of Madrid, showed that energy and amino acid availability increased with crude protein content and was higher for US soybean meal. 

Dr. Jannes Doppenberg, Schothorst Research Institute (the Netherlands), then put the data into current matrices for soybean meal based feed rations, and this showed the differences of the soybean meal by origin in poultry layers, broilers and swine. The data showed that US soybean meal at latest prices adds between a Euro 30 - Euro 50 value per metric tone to the customer over South American meals. 
 
As one Polish customer of US soybean meal mentioned, "this is why we have been purchasing US soybean meal over the last couple of years, we know the value it adds". Poland imported 84,000 MT of US soybean meal in Fiscal Year 2009 and increased 60% over the previous year. Poland was the largest importing country in the EU-27 of US soybean meal this last year.