The livestock and poultry industry consumes about 34,600,000 short tons of soybean meal each year in the United States, or this is equivalent to about 1.44 billion bushels of soybean annually. Needless to say, the livestock and poultry industries are critical to the health and well being of the soybean farmer. A more critical look at soybean meal use by livestock and poultry is interesting and revealing:

•    Swine and poultry account for about 80% of all domestic soybean meal consumption

•    For each pound of pork or poultry meal produced a half-pound of soybean meal is consumed

•    The poultry industry utilizes about 54% of the domestic soybean meal. If broilers have a feed conversion ratio of approximately 1.8 to 1 (takes 1.8 pounds of feed to produce a one pound of meat) and soybean meal accounts for about 27.4% of the poultry diet; therefore, to produce a pound of broiler, it will require about a half-pound of soybean meal ((1.8 x .274) = 0.493).

•    A 47-pound tom turkey will eat on the average 132 pounds of feed and 26.3 pounds of soybean meal with a feed conversion of 2.79 during its 22-week life. The calculations indicate that tom turkeys will consume a little over a half pound of soybean meal for each pound of turkey ((26.3 / 47) =0.560).

•    The swine industry utilizes about 26% of the domestic soybean meal. If swine feed contains on the average 19.35% soybean meal and the feed conversion for swine is about 2.8; therefore, pigs will also require a little over a half-pound of soybean meal per pound of pork ((2.8 x 0.1935) = 0.542).

•    The remaining soybean meal is used by the beef (10%), dairy (5%), pet foods (3%) and other species (2%). While use of meal by these species is significantly smaller than swine and poultry; soybean meal is an important protein ingredient for meeting the dietary amino acid needs.

Additional Soybean and soybean meal data:
    A bushel of soybean meal yields about 11 pounds of crude soybean oil and 48 pounds of soybean meal.

    •    A metric ton of soybean meal is equivalent to about 46 bushels of soybeans: A short ton of soybean meal is equivalent to about 33.3 bushels of soybeans

    •    Total soybean meal use is estimated at 43.0 million short tons in the 2007/08-crop year. Of which 34.6 million short tons will be used by the U.S. feed industry and 8.25 million short tons will be exported to livestock and poultry producers in foreign countries.