Jamie Beyer, a director with the American Soybean Association (ASA), participated in a Nutrition and Purchasing Conference in July 2024 in Bogota, Colombia, alongside industry leaders and Spanish-speaking buyers from Mexico, Central America and South America.

Due to a busy summer with director duties and on-farm responsibilities, Beyer, a current director and former president of the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association, was only in the country for about 36 hours before returning home to her family farm in west-central Minnesota.

“It was a quick turnaround to say the least,” she said.

Global aquaculture production is contending with rising production
costs, along with the stability and reduction of finished product prices
(cultivated fish and shrimp). During her time in Colombia, Beyer learned that soymeal is currently marketed to aquaculture heavily because of Forage Fish Dependency Ratios (FFDR). When determining how much aquaculture crop depends on fish as feed, countries are imposing ratios to establish “sustainable feed” limits.

“When it comes to feeding aquaculture, there is a big push to figure out how to manage ammonia byproducts sustainably,” said Beyer, who raises soybeans, corn, sugarbeets and alfalfa in Wheaton.

According to the U.S. Soybean Export Council – which co-sponsored the conference alongside ASA and the United Soybean Board – 1 metric ton of South American soybeans produces about the same amount of carbon as 1,000 metric tons of U.S. soy.

“We are that much more environmentally efficient than our competitors,” Beyer said.

Beyer also learned that buyers, many of whom changed their soy supply to South America due to low water levels in the Panama Canal, said they grade U.S. soy higher because of its consistent and higher nutritional value. Conditions in the Panama Canal have improved, but the flow has yet to be fully restored.

“They have a preference for U.S. soybeans,” she said.

Feeding high protein meal requires a different managerial system than low protein meal, Beyer reported. If a farmer is overfeeding, they should use a lower (cheaper) protein feed. If the farmer is going to closely monitor feed and is concerned about monitoring costs, they can use a higher cost, higher protein feed. There are a few options for feeding aquaculture: Broadcast feeding manually means that the food given may not match the fish’s appetites, meaning there’s a risk of wasted feed. Feeding on a timer is an improvement; and acoustic feeders would be the next level up in technology, matching feed rations with the clicking of the shrimp mandibles.

“This system is not fool-proof and still takes an expert who understands the behavior of the fish and the timing of feed,” Beyer said. “For some farmers, they are trying to minimize the number of days to get a hatchling to finished product. For other farmers, that isn’t a priority.”

During her 20-minute presentation, Buyer highlighted her farming practices and the mission of the groups under the U.S. Soy umbrella