The United Soybean Board (USB) is transitioning its animal agriculture strategy. Moving away from purely academic research, USB is launching a new advisory structure designed to fast-track validated, commercially viable soy solutions directly to livestock operations.
Instead of simply funding broad scientific studies, the new structure focuses on delivering market-driven solutions that swine nutritionists and producers can confidently implement to improve herd performance and operational profitability.
“Today, our customers, and the nutritionists who guide them, are seeking more than research. They are looking for practical solutions that address real-world challenges and can be confidently implemented within their operations,” said Keenan McRoberts, Executive Vice President of Strategy at the United Soybean Board. “USB is meeting that challenge head-on.”
Swine Advisory Team Leads Way with the “Feed4Profit” Tool
Advisory teams will work to identify opportunities, validate solutions under commercial conditions and encourage adoption throughout the livestock industry. Under the new model, species-specific teams will consist of qualified animal nutrition and health experts who understand the unique production systems, economic realities and decision-making processes within their respective industries.
The swine advisory team is already utilizing this new model and has developed commercial decision-making tools like the Feed4Profit economic modeling tool. This tool goes beyond basic feed formulation to help producers make strategic dietary decisions that directly improve income per pig.
“As animal agriculture remains soybean farmers’ biggest customer, that relationship drives demand, supports prices, and ultimately keeps our operations viable,” Tom Frisch, United Soybean Board farmer-leader from Minnesota and Volume Action Team Chair said in a release. “The advisory teams will focus on addressing real-world industry challenges, including seasonal performance losses, disease-related productivity issues and opportunities to better capture the nutritional and economic value of soybeans and/or soybean meal.”
The “Insight to Impact” Framework
To ensure new ideas actually work in commercial barns, USB is using a three-stage pipeline to vet and roll out new solutions:
- Discovery: Identifying inefficiencies, herd health gaps and high-value soy opportunities.
- Development: Validating and proving the efficacy of soy-based solutions under actual commercial production conditions (including rigorous economic and feasibility analyses).
- Adoption: Focuses on driving real behavior changes in commercial systems through targeted outreach, producer education and measurable operational results.
USB says success will be measured not by research outputs alone, but by actual changes in feed ingredient utilization and formulation practices within livestock operations.
Directing Solutions Toward Major Swine Challenges
Rather than researching soy in a vacuum, the Swine Advisory Team will focus on solving the day-to-day pain points of pork production, including mitigating seasonal performance losses, overcoming disease-related productivity issues, and helping producers better capture the precise nutritional and economic value of U.S. soybean meal in their rations.
“The transition marks a new chapter for USB’s animal nutrition and health efforts, one focused on moving beyond research generation toward tangible results that benefit producers, nutritionists and the broader livestock industry,” USB said in a release.
Learn more at can.ussoy.org.
