By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor

DALLAS, Texas — No matter what other uses people can find for soybeans, farmers and processors at last week’s Commodity Classic in Dallas were reminded that food for humans and livestock continues to be the bean’s driving reason for being.

Richard Galloway, a United Soybean Board (USB) contractor with Galloway and Associates, pointed out “certainly the underlying bedrock of our demand is edible oils.” He added meal is also a high-protein feedstock, and that both saw mounting demand in the past few years, until just recently, because of increasing prosperity in other nations driving demand for more nutritious food.

With a depressed global economy, Galloway said people are eating out less, which is in turn dropping demand for edible oil. Even before that, between 2003-07, demand had been going down thanks to more attention to trans fats and new Food and Drug Administra-tion labeling regulations.

He said the soybean industry lost sales of 200 million bushels of soybeans as a result – “Thank goodness we had biodiesel,” he noted – but demand for palm oil imports shot up.

“We were concerned about saturated fats,” he said. “Now we’re demonizing trans fats. Neither are good for you, and should be minimized in your diet.”

USB Production Chair Rick Stern said the USB spends $3.5 million of checkoff dollars annually to improve the quality of soy oil and meal, as well as another $4 million on yield research.

Having lower saturated fat has been sacrificed in the quest to reduce trans fats in new low-linolenic soybean varieties, which are still fairly new. But it was even earlier than 2003 when Galloway said the food industry put the soybean industry on notice that consumers would demand healthier oils.

In 2003, QUALISOY – a coalition of 16 organizations and businesses – was formed to research, develop and promote trait-enhanced soybeans. The low-lin bean (3 percent or less, as opposed to the traditional 8 percent) is its first success story. Galloway said its oil has improved stability and resists oxidation better than traditional soybean oil, for longer shelf life and better light-duty frying.

In 2006, farmers produced 60 million pounds of low-lin beans; in 2009, they will harvest 20 times that, or 1.2 billion pounds. Restaurants such as KFC use low-lin oil, as do packaged-food manufacturers, such as Kellogg’s for Pop Tarts.

“What you’re seeing here, this is really the fastest we can develop, introduce and market a new product,” Galloway said.