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The NDSU Extension weekly podcast In the Pod: Soybean Updates delivers timely insights and expert advice on soybean production.
You're listening to In The Pod, soybean updates, a weekly trek into the latest soybean information from NDSU Extension. Soybean farmers need to eventually sell their soybeans. The North Dakota Soybean Council is exploring other markets and connecting with people in order to open more trade doors. Evan Montgomery, vice chair of the North Dakota Soybean Council, recently traveled to Thailand and Vietnam. Evan, tell us about your recent soybean travel.
Evan Montgomery:Yeah. We were just recently on a trade mission to Thailand and Vietnam. Visited a lot of industry there. We visited soy beverage and food production. We visited a feed mill, talked with the foreign egg secretaries in both countries. We even got to visit a fish farm. Got to meet with and talk with industry of all sorts, relating to soybeans in both countries.
Bruce Sundeen:How are soybeans used in these countries?
Evan Montgomery:The food grade soybeans are generally used in the soy beverage production. There was many, many different kinds of soy milk that we tried. A lot of high protein varieties. A lot of tofu is being used. Edamame soy yogurt was big. Just a lot of interesting ways to get high quality protein into their diets, is becoming, kind of an important thing. It's a good safe source of protein and nutrients.
Bruce Sundeen:What part of the travel was most impressive?
Evan Montgomery:Both countries had a sort of a similar relationship with soybeans. They each import whole beans. Food grade soybeans is also a big, big part of it. When we were in Vietnam, we had the privilege to go down the Mekong Delta and visit a feed mill that made fish food, you know, using a large portion of soybean meal in that ration. And we were actually able to literally follow the bag of feed down to a fish farm, essentially. And we got to meet a gentleman and his family who live on this, I wanna call it a fish raft, but it was a floating platform where there was fish being raised. Got to talk with him and literally a CR soybean meal being fed to his crop of fish. It was kind of a neat full circle moment.
Bruce Sundeen:Soybeans can be imported from most anywhere. Why import from The US?
Evan Montgomery:It was interesting. When we were at this feed miller, we saw two big bunkers of soybean meal, and one of them looked a little bit off color and had, bridging in there where there was kind of a kicked up parts of soybean meal. Then the other bunker had really, really nice color, ran nice, was dry, and it looked kinda familiar. Well, it looked familiar because that was US soybean meal, just like the stuff being crushed over here in Castleton, for instance. But they told us they can count on it being in good quality. It gets here quickly. It stores nice. They know what they've got. They actually told us that US soybean meal stores better than even US beans being crushed in country. And I said that's because we keep it in the refrigerator up here. The day when I said that, there was a a 110 degree difference between the temperature there and the temperature back home.
Bruce Sundeen:Evan, it takes money and time to travel to these countries. What's the value?
Evan Montgomery:We met with a soy milk producer in Thailand who told us, he said, I used to buy all Canadian beans because they would come and visit me, but then The US people started to come visit me, now I buy US soybeans. That interpersonal relationship is very valuable, especially over there. This lady at the feed mill that we met in in Vietnam had actually been over to North Dakota to one of the gentlemen on the trade mission, had been to his farm. It helped her put a face to the farmer on the other end. It was just a really, really neat moment. We were there for questions. We got all sorts of great questions from them about, you know, what's it like to be an American farmer. We're able to show a chart of the soybean production in North Dakota from the early nineties to today. And I showed that chart to a gentleman in Thailand, and he was kind of, taken aback by the kind of almost exponential rise in soybean production. And just our ability as a state to be able to bring that much production to bear in that short amount of time, I think, surprised him.
Bruce Sundeen:Thanks, Evan. Our guest has been Evan Montgomery, vice chairman of the North Dakota Soybean Council. You're listening to In The Pod, Soybean Updates, a weekly trek into the latest soybean information from NDSU Extension supported by the North Dakota Soybean Council.