Soybean Meal

Soybean meal is the most used vegetable protein feed as an animal feed ingredient.

United States, Brazil, Argentina, India are the major producers and exporters of soy meal in the world. Though China too is one of the major producer, it sometimes import it to fill its demand-supply gap. U.S. is the biggest producer but Argentina leads the export chart followed by Brazil as U.S. has big domestic demand too whereas the South American countries have limited local demand. Generally, U.S. contributes 26% of the world soybean meal production followed by China (20%), Argentina (17%) and Brazil (14%) while India's total production is estimated at 3% of the world production.

Soybean Meal Demand

South East Asia (Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia etc.), Taiwan, China, South Korea, Japan & Gulf are major markets of Indian soybean meal. For 2007-08 good demand has been generated from European countries also. India has freight advantage over American countries for supply to far east asia. India use to export most of its soybean meal production but with local feed industry also growing the local consumption has also risen. The poultry industry is getting more and more organised in India due to its demand so the requirement for high protein meals has also gone up.

Soybean meal general Specification for Indian origin:
Protein: Min 48% Moisture: 11-12% max Fat/Oil: 1.5% max Fibre: 6% max Sand/Silica: 2-2.5% max
Argentina offers protein content of min. 44%, Brazil 48% while US 44-48%.
The major ports for export for sbm are Kandla, Bedi, Mumbai (all three on the western coast of India) & Visakhapatnam also known as Vizag (on the eastern coast). The other main international ports of exports for sbm are Paranagua (Brazil), Nola (US) and Buenos Aires (Argentina).

Soybean Meal Futures

CBOT is the main futures platform for soy in the world. Indian soybean meal prices basically move in tandem with CBOT. Dalian Exchange in China is also another important exchange for sbm. The supply from Argentina and Brazil, the major suppliers from South America, the world demand and the freight factor also affects the soybean meal prices in Indian market. With the demand for oilseeds expected to rise in future for the production of biofuel, the prices for soymeal may jump up tremendously. During the year of 2008, when the prices for crude oil crossed US$ 140, the prices for soybean meal nearly touched 500 mark. In India, there is no futures trading in soybean meal but futures of soybean and ref soya oil are traded on Indian exchanges mainly Ncdex and Nbot so processors and traders of meal can hedge their price exposure with beans and oil contracts.