The Illinois farm Bureau publication “Farm Week” had a nice article printed from Illinois farmdoc website “Are U.S. Soybeans doomed to repeat history” in its July 21, 2025 issue.   It is well done and very informative. Having raised soybeans all those years and been involved in related activities. I thought I might just write down a few things I remember and some thoughts I have on the future of soybean production and trade.

I was President of Illinois Pork Producer Association when President Nixon put the embargo on and initiated price controls. I remember very well the market disruption it caused.  Many years later ( I think 36 years) while Chairman of the Foot and Mouth Eradication Committee, Inter-American Group for  Eradication of Foot and Mouth Disease for the Americans( GIEFA) I was having dinner in Sao Paulo, Brazil with Roberto Rodrigues, Brazilian Minister of Agriculture and Sebastiao Guedes CEO of Brazilian Cattle Association  and the minister said something about soybean production in Brazil would not be where it is today had it not been for Japan’s investments and interest.

Another thing I think the embargo influenced was the purchase of Consolidated Grain and Barge by the Japanese after the untimely death in 1984 of my Friend Bob Frane, President and founder of Consolidated Grain and Barge.  I had helped Bob get some mooring barge permits and set up some meetings in Washington so when Japanese purchased the company they came to my house to ask me to continue working with them either part or full time. I told them I did it for Bob as a friend and had taken no pay only expenses. He did give my wife Linda and I a trip on a tow boat from St. Louis to New Orleans.  I remember very well the gentleman from Japan saying we want to own the soybeans and have soybeans in storage so we do not have another food shock. I can also remember while in Tokyo in 1978 the Japanese Government official referring to the Embargo as the food embargo.

Then while I was serving as an officer on the United Soybean Board and a member of the US Soybean Export Cancel we were concerned about how dependent we had become on the China market. Without looking it up I think China was purchasing around 60% of the soybeans the US was exporting.  In the Farm Week Farmdoc article they write Brazil is selling more beans to China than the US.   I have not been involved the last 13 years, but I feel sure the leadership in the soybean industry has been looking at diversity of our export market.  It is a world market so as more beans from Brazil went to China we most likely picked up some market share in other countries plus the Soybean Export Council has worked and got more beans into countries that were not importing beans or meal.

In keeping with what the President is trying to do, let’s process more beans here and export more meat. As I said in my Book “Your Food- My Adventure’ nothing helps rural America more than the exporting of meat.