NEW ORLEANS, La. — The U.S. soybean industry is struggling to take back the market it has lost to high oleic canola from Canada.
The original goal of the industry was to have full commercial introduction of two high oleic soybean traits by 2014.
The reality is that won’t happen until 2017 or later.
Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer are having difficulty achieving global regulatory approval for their traits.
Monsanto is awaiting approval of its Vistive Gold soybeans in the European Union and China.
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The EU has approved Monsanto’s high oleic trait and its Roundup Ready 2 Yield trait individually but it has yet to approve the two stacked together.
DuPont is slightly ahead of Monsanto. It has had Chinese approval since 2011 but it is still awaiting the stacked trait approval for its Plenish and Roundup Ready traits from the EU.
“It has been eight years in the EU,” said David Tegeder, senior marketing manager for Plenish soybeans.
“It is unbelievable.”
Both companies believe they will have full global approval for their high oleic soybeans by the end of 2016.
U.S. farmers will plant an estimated 450,000 acres of high oleic soybeans this spring, double what went in the ground in 2015.
The industry is trying to win back the 1.8 billion kilograms of annual soybean oil demand that was lost when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration implemented a trans-fat labelling law.
The labelling law pushed partially hydrogenated soybean oil out of restaurant fryers in favour of alternative products like high oleic canola oil.
Almost all of the 450,000 acres will be Plenish soybeans. Monsanto will contract limited acres of its Vistive Gold soybeans this year.
Tegeder said the Chinese approval has given DuPont the ability to contract sizable acres of Plenish despite lacking approval for the crop in the EU.
“That has really allowed us to go in with more of a limited launch because half our beans go to China and less than 10 percent to Europe,” he said.
The crop is being grown in an identity preserved system in regions of 10 different states where crushing plants are selling the meal locally rather than exporting it overseas.
It is not a full product launch because the crop can’t be sold to processors that export meal, such as those located along the banks of the Mississippi River.
Tegeder expects Plenish acres to double to about 900,000 acres in 2017. The American Soybean Association forecasts a total of 1.1 million acres of high oleic soybeans that year.
The United Soybean Board has set a goal of 18 million acres of high oleic soybeans by 2023. That would make it the fourth largest crop in the U.S. behind, corn, commodity soybeans and wheat.
Tegeder thinks the regulatory delays will make it hard to achieve that target. It may have to be pushed back two or three years.
He said high oleic soybeans will compete directly with high oleic canola in the food service industry. He believes soybeans have the advantage because they are processed closer to the end-use customers.
“If I’m a U.S. food manufacturer it’s going to mean less freight costs,” said Tegeder.
He doesn’t believe there is enough of a population base for high oleic soybeans to be grown and processed in Western Canada, even though the trait will be available in Group 0 maturity group lines that could be grown in the region.
Farmers in Ontario have expressed interest in growing the crop but local processors Archer Daniels Midland and Bunge prefer to centrally process high oleic soybeans in the U.S. and ship the oil back to Canada.
