Soybeans global production

Fats and oils of vegetable and animal origin belong to the most important renewable raw materials used in the chemical industry. The fats and oils are mainly applied in human alimentation only 10% of the oils are converted into technical products. The total global market for fats and oils amounts to about 130 million tonnes. Soybean oil (31 million tonnes per year), a by-product of soybean flour production, and palm oil (31 million tonnes per year) are the most important fatty raw materials worldwide. Animal fats (22 million tonnes per year) arise as by-products of meat fabrication and processing and are used for nutrition and technical purposes. 

As shown in Table 34.8, the oil content of row crop oilseeds varies from about 19 percent for soybean to 43 percent for sunflowerseed, and 41 to 45 percent for rapeseed/canola. More feed coproducts always are produced than oils, with a ratio 4 1 in the case of soybean. Soybean meal is the major feed protein source for production of poultry, currently the leading domestic and global meat source, and in the rapidly developing aquaculture industries. 

Soybean production now occupies close to 6% of the worlds arable land. Soybean expansion is occurring much faster than with other major grains or oilseeds. Since 1993, soybean hectares grew two times the overall global economy (Fig. 5.1). Soybeans increasingly are being employed as the modern input of choice for buyers. They are mainly used as intermediate food, feed, and industrial inputs, not final consumer products, therefore remaining somewhat invisible in the economy. 

Critical to the vitality of the U.S. soybean complex is the continued expansion of the livestock sector. For example, over the last ten years, poultry production in the United States grew only two-thirds of the world rate, and exports grew only one-fourth of the global rate. This indicates that poultry production is not only growing faster outside the United States, but new demand is being met by offshore producers, such as Brazil and China. China would source some of their soybeans from the United States, while Brazil will not. The challenge for the U.S. soybean industry is how to make U.S. soybeans and soybean meal a preferred input for the rapidly expanding livestock and aquaculture industries overseas. 

Soybean farmers in the Center-West currently have a comparative advantage in soybean production compared with producers in the United States because of their low opportunity costs. U.S. farmers have increasingly chosen to grow corn, while farmers in the Center-West presendy have few better alternatives than soybeans. As result, the tendency will he for the United States role in the global soy complex to... 

It is now convincing that palm oil products are attractive renewable resources for the production of PHA. In order to ensure sufficient supply of this raw material for large-scale production of PHA, we should first take into account the amount of palm oil products generated in Malaysia every year. The data should include the net balance of global trade (import and export) and existing demand of end users. It was estimated that to produce 5,000 tons of PHA annually, approximately 7,000 tons of soybean oil were required with more than 150 batches of fermentation run (Akiyama et al. 2003). At the moment, this set of simulation is by far the closest and most relevant to the PHA fermentation from palm oil. Over the past decade, the average yield of palm oil on plantations has been measured at 3.8 tons per ha (Murphy 2007). Therefore, in order to produce 1 million tons of PHA, 450,000 ha of oil palm plantation is required. Hence, more lands have to be reclaimed to pave the way for new oil pahn plantation in order to produce more oil. Nevertheless, it has been suggested that the yield of oil could be doubled by... 

Historical Development and Economic Importance. Since 1965 global soybean production has increased from 30 Mio mto to 237 Mio mto and soya oil production from 5 Mio mto to 37 Mio mto in 2007. This change in the pattern of soya seed production is reflecting both the growing importance of soybean oil and also the growth in importance of oilcake and meal as a protein source for human nutrition and animal feed. 

Due to climate- and soil-related cultivation restrictions, different oil crops are characteristic for different parts of the world. Nevertheless, a global market exists and international trade in oil seeds, vegetable oils, and respective by-products is significant. The major oil crops worldwide are oil palm, soybean, rapeseed (canola), and sunfiower (see Table 4.1). The latter three are described in more detail below. Palm oil, which is obtained from the oil palm tree mainly planted in South East Asia (especially in Indonesia and Malaysia), grew to be the vegetable oil with the highest consumption (42.1 million tons, 30%) ahead of soybean oil (37.9 million tons, 28%) [1]. It has several applications in food, oleochemicals, and other industries [2], while it is also discussed as a major source for biodiesel. 

The worldwide consumption of soybean oil was 37.9 million tons in 2008, accounting for 28% of global vegetable oil usage [1]. It finds its way into several food appHcations such as cooking oils, salad oils, or margarines. Technical uses include additives for coatings. In the biofuels industries of the United States and Brazil, soybean oil is also the main feedstock for biodiesel production (almost 20% of soybean oil went into biodiesel in the United States in 2008 [7]). 

In just fifty years from 1950 to 2000, the world population has grown from 2.5 billion to 6.1 billion. Currently, the worid population grows by about 80 million per year, which demands extra grain output of at least about 40 mii-iion tons (0.5 kg cereai per day for one person) without consideration of the nutrient level. This increase, and the concomitant demand for grain, especially corn, wheat, rice and soybeans, will continue to place tremendous pressure on today s global agricultural production systems. ... 

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