Soybeans grown in the U.S. are world-renowned.
Why?
Quality.
Since 1986, the quality of the U.S. soybean crop has been documented in the U.S. Soybean Quality Annual Report, which is funded by the United Soybean Board, and serves as the benchmark for U.S. soybean quality.
“There’s no other official survey of the U.S. crop,” said Seth Naeve, a University of Minnesota soybean researcher who leads the report. “We need a measure of how the crop is doing over time. It goes down in the historical record.”
Celebrating 40 years, the report’s core mission is to “provide transparent, science-based data to sustain U.S. soybean export leadership and support partners in purchasing decisions by benchmarking U.S. quality.” Data from the survey guides international customers by outlining key quality markers like moisture, protein and foreign material content and test and seed weight.
“The primary focus has always been support for international markets,” Naeve said. “It’s a service provided to customers for clarity around the quality of the crop that they will be seeing over the next marketing year.”
The 2025 report confirmed a long-term trend that Naeve and his team have been keeping a close eye on for several years.
“We have a continued flattening of the protein gradient across the U.S.,” Naeve said. “Historically, there was a strong gradient where Northern and Western soybeans were low in protein, and soybeans in the South and East had increased protein levels. But in the past 10 years, we’ve seen a general flattening of that.”
For buyers, especially those in Southeast Asia where Pacific Northwest (PNW) ports make more logistical sense, this means less reason to discriminate against Northern-grown beans that often make their way overseas via the PNW.
“Purchasers that have been concerned with low protein soybeans from the PNW should take another look at soybean purchases from the PNW because the protein differential between the Gulf and PNW is not going to be as great as it has been historically,” Naeve said.
Another big takeaway from this year’s U.S. soybean crop was moisture.
“On average, our soybeans were quite dry this year,” Naeve said. “The benefit of that for whole soybean purchasers is that they’re getting more good stuff for every ton because they’re not paying for water.”
Low moisture also plays an integral role in the quality of northern-grown soybeans.
“Dry soybeans tend to store and transport well so they’re in good condition when they arrive at their destination,” Naeve said. “So, the dry beans coupled with the cold conditions that we have at harvest and the cold storage conditions really helps our quality especially compared to Brazil where their soybeans are very wet and have very hot, humid conditions.”
With record soybean yields and strong compositional uniformity, the U.S. crop is globally competitive with improved amino acid and energy potential for feed and consistent quality. And the 2025 U.S. Soybean Quality Annual Report provides all the data necessary for purchasers to make informed decisions when they choose U.S. soy.
