Earlier this harvest season, I had the opportunity to ride along with Elverson farmer Bill Beam.
For the first time, this season Beam grew high oleic soybeans on his farm.
While our intention was for me to ride along with Beam to get a first-hand look at harvesting high oleic, the weather pushed the harvest back a week and later a tractor malfunction prevented a harvest taken place during my interview.
However, I was able to ride around the soybean field with Beam in his pickup truck, during which time he explained the significance of this crop.
“You’ve heard of hydrogenated oil, which is claimed not to be healthy for you. The purpose of this new (high oleic soybean) oil is it does not need to go through the process to be used and so therefore you don’t have the unhealthy part of the oil. It’s a more healthy oil. It’s a more stable oil. It can be used at higher temps for longer periods of time,” said Beam. “The main reason is because of the health concerns of the processing that the other oils had to go through. People like to use soybean oil because it’s a neutral flavor base, it doesn’t change the flavor of the food.”
Beam explained that this new soybean is limited release.
“It’s only grown in certain maturities,” he said. “This variety was offered to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, Delaware, we are the ones first offered it, which is unusual. Typically we’re not offered something new like this often. Typically it goes to Iowa or someplace like that.”
The local farmer believes this new soybean is probably going to be the wave of the future.
“I think five years from now it’ll be a very large percent of all of the soybeans will be high oleic simply because of the quality of the oil. It’s soon going to be planted from one end of the country to another.”
When asked if this new soybean is genetically modified, he said, “It is genetically modified.”
“All the soybeans I grow are Roundup Ready. The high oleic that I’m growing is also GM.”
When asked what he would say to those who are concerned about genetically modified crops, he said, “We’ve been using science to improve crops since we started planting crops thousands of years ago. We’re really not doing anything that’s all that much different than we were doing when we first took one seed and cross bred it with another seed many, many years ago.”
“The fact that it is genetically modified makes it a more productive crop for the farmers, and, in this case, it makes it a healthier product for consumers, also,” he said.
According to an email interview with Heather Manhardt, Manager at Osborn Barr, (a marketing and communications company focused on agriculture and rural America with offices in St. Louis and Kansas City http://osbornbarr.com), “High oleic soybean is a new type of soybean becoming available across select areas in the Northeast and Midwest. High oleic offers farmers the chance to take back lost market share and reach end-use customers in the industrial and food industries.”
Manhardt explained the significance of this soybean.
“High oleic soybeans produce an oil that is lower in saturated fat and high in oleic fatty acids. It doesn’t break down in high heat situations, so it is useful to the food industry for frying situations. It also extends shelf life. It’s nutrition profile is similar to olive oil and it meets many of the same needs as canola and palm. Unlike other competitive oils, high oleic soybean oil is a locally sourced oil – giving food companies in Pennsylvania and throughout the United States an opportunity to be a locally grown oil. This oil serves as a replacement for partially hydrogenating soybean oil, which was a leading producer of trans fats in the American diet.”
She noted that Beam chose to grow high oleic soybeans.
“Farmers have choices on which varieties they want to plant and this was an opportunity for him to grow a product that his customers need. Perdue Agribusiness offers contracts to farmers who want to grow high oleic soybeans and the farmers then make a promise to sell those soybeans to Perdue,” she explained.
She said the soybeans will be delivered to a local elevator and then moved to Perdue Agribusiness’s crush plant in Salisbury, Md. There, they will crush the soybeans for meal and oil. The meal will be fed as livestock feed. The oil will be offered to Perdue’s oil customers for purchase.
“High oleic soybeans were researched for more than a decade and have been approved in the United States for several years,” said Manhardt.
During the ride along, Beam said, “Soybeans are a good rotational crop. Soybeans are a legume. Legumes put nutrients back into the ground that corn and wheat might take out of the ground so it’s an excellent rotational crop. It’s also this year probably more profitable than corn because of the low prices of corn.”
He explained that corn is more expensive per acre to grow than soybean.
Beam also shared a little bit about life as a farmer.
“I’ve been farming my whole life,” he said. “I grew up on the farm.”
What he likes about farming is that “it can be rewarding to grow a crop. Don’t always make money but it’s always rewarding to plant a crop and then harvest a crop, there’s a sense of accomplishment. You’re your own boss for the most part, except the weather dictates what we do.”
Among the challenges are the deer. “The deer are destroying our crops here. That’s probably one of the most frustrating things. One year it’s the weather, the next year it’s the deer.”
