Soybean meal’s nutritional value varies by country, says report

25 July 2017 --- The nutritional value of soybean meal produced in different places may be affected by genetic differences among different varieties of soybeans, as well as differences in growing conditions and processing, according to research from the University of Illinois (U of I).

An experiment to compare the nutritional composition and amino acid digestibility by pigs using soybean meal produced in the five major soybean-producing countries was conducted by Hans H. Stein, professor of nutrition in the Department of Animal Sciences at U of I.

The largest producers of soybean meal in the world are China, Argentina, Brazil, the US and India. In many swine-producing countries around the world, soybean meal is imported from one of these five countries and buyers can choose among them. Until Stein’s experiment, however, there had been limited data to compare the compositional and nutritional value to pigs of soybean meal produced in different countries.

Stein and Ph.D. student Vanessa Lagos conducted their study by collecting five different sources of soybean meal each from China, Argentina, Brazil and the US, and four sources from India. They then fed diets containing the 24 soybean meal sources to growing barrows.

“Our data indicate that the amount of digestible protein and amino acids were greater in soybean meal from the United States, India and Brazil than in soybean meal from Argentina or China,” Stein reports.

Soybean meal from Brazil and India had the greatest concentration of crude protein and amino acids, he says. However, the standardized ileal digestibility of crude protein and amino acids was greatest in soybean meal from the US.

Stein says that in the global economy, feed ingredients may be sourced from a number of different sources.

“It's important to know that the nutritional value of soybean meal produced in different countries may be different, and to take those differences into account when making decisions about purchasing and diet formulations,” Stein argues. “Results of this experiment indicating that the concentration of digestible amino acids is less in soybean meal sourced from Argentina or China than in soybean meal from the United States gives international buyers increased information to base purchasing decisions on.”

“Since it is true that there is variability in the digestibility of amino acids among countries and even within countries, I would think that further research could be focused on accurately identifying the factors that generate this variability,” Lagos tells NutritionInsight when asked about the further research that needs to be done in the area. 

Lagos also has other suggestions: identifying markers that can be used to easily predict the nutritional value of a batch of soybean meal; research into differences in energy or phosphorus digestibility among soybean meal obtained from different countries; and evaluating the different varieties of soybean meal as they are developed to ensure updated and accurate data.

“The values for digestibility reported in the paper can be used in diet formulation and may result in a more accurate prediction of the nutritional value of diets,” Lagos says of the findings’ potential commercial applications. “Thus, by using these values, swine production may become more efficient, and nitrogen excretion in the manure may be reduced. The differences in protein quality among different sources of soybean meal that were observed likely will also exist in different sources of soy protein used for human consumption, but research to confirm this hypothesis has not been conducted.”

US Soybean Export Council (USSEC) chairman Jim Miller says the results of this study support USSEC’s strategy of building a preference for US soy around the world. 

“We have boots on the ground in six global regions to educate our customers on the intrinsic and extrinsic advantages of US soy using the latest research and information,” he explains. “US farmers have always believed that our product is very consistent, and Dr. Stein’s study proves that soybean meal from the US has less variability in both composition and digestibility.”

The USSEC and the Indiana Soybean Alliance provided funding for the study. The paper, Chemical composition and amino acid digestibility of soybean meal produced in the United States, China, Argentina, Brazil, or India, is published in the Journal of Animal Science.

Soybeans are currently a popular beverage ingredient, and one recent example of their commercial use was Kikkoman and NIZO’s announcement of their collaboration to launch a new soy milk-yoghurt drink. Our sister site FoodIngredientsFirst reports that the drink is to be launched in Japan in August 2017.