Northern Soy Marketing’s (NSM) New Year’s resolution? Spread the knowledge of soybean quality far and wide.
The organization, a collaboration of farmer leaders from Minnesota and South Dakota, didn’t waste time before getting to work, heading to Indonesia Jan. 12-15. While there, the NSM delegation met with industry stakeholders from several companies, including New Hope Group, which operates across feed manufacturing, livestock breeding, meat processing and dairy with over 600 subsidiaries and a workforce of over 100,000, and Japfa Comfeed, one of Indonesia’s largest agri-food companies.
“We have to keep promoting our quality,” said NSM Vice Chair David Struck, who attended the trade mission. “Our international customers place high value on personal relationships, so these visits go a long way towards building and maintaining export markets for our soybeans.”
For NSM Director Carson Stange, it was his first international trade visit.
“I had no idea what to expect but went into it with an open mind,” said Stange, who farms in South Dakota. “It surprised me how influential our interactions felt. Everyone was receptive to hearing what we had to say, and we were able to harvest some great conversations.”
Accompanying Struck and Stange were technical experts including University of Minnesota Soybean Agronomist Seth Naeve and Bob Swick, a poultry nutrition consultant.
“We have excellent resources at NSM,” Stange said. “There was a wealth of knowledge in the room and that was what made these meetings impactful.”
While the technical experts, which also included a representative from AGP, were part of the NSM delegation to answer specific questions about northern-grown soy quality and characteristics, having farmers present was a critical component of the visits.
“We’re there to present our way of life to them,” Struck said. “We’re family farms, not corporate farms. They’re very interested in the family orientation of our farms and how things are done on farms in the United States.”
Additional companies that held meetings with NSM wereas Sreeya Sewu, a leading poultry-based food company; Cerestar, an agribusiness group specializing in wheat flour milling and feed ingredient supply; Central Proteina Prima, Indonesia’s leading integrated shrimp producer and processor; Malindo Feedmill, a key player in Indonesia’s poultry industry, operating across the entire value chain; and Sinar Agung Agro, an importer and distributor of U.S. soybeans for food and feed purposes.
“During our meetings, our message was reinforcing the value of northern-grown soybeans,” Stange said. “And the mills all seemed innovative and were doing a lot of their own research, so it was vital that we had industry experts along with us to talk technical with their researchers.”
On the last day of the trade mission, the NSM delegation hosted its “Understanding U.S. Soy Quality” seminar, inviting feed mill executives, purchasers and nutritionists to join and learn more about the advantages of buying northern-grown soy, including low foreign material and consistent quality.
“We had really good participation during the seminar and everybody seemed to be interested in our story,” Struck said. “It was really good.”
The work is far from over, but NSM isn’t losing steam. NSM will continue to promote the quality and consistency of northern-grown soy in Vietnam in March 2026.
