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USB helps make 26 soy-based products a realityDemonstrating its commitment to developing new industrial and consumer products that contain U.S. soy, the United Soybean Board recently released its annual list of soy-based products that the soybean checkoff helped introduce this year. Thanks, in part, to support from the soybean checkoff, 26 new soy-based products hit the market in 2009. USB's New Uses program provides funding to scientists and industrial partners to research, develop and commercialize products containing soybeans. Marty Ross, vice chair of the USB New Uses program who is in his fifth year as a soybean checkoff farmer-leader, said watching a soy-based product develop from concept to commercialization is very gratifying. "To see this many products come to fruition year in and year out with the help of the soybean checkoff is amazing," said the Delmar, Del., soybean farmer. "The role of the soybean checkoff's New Uses program is to benefit soybean farmers by increasing industrial demand for U.S. soy. And I think the New Uses program is certainly doing that and will continue to do that, in part, by supporting the next generation of products such as these." The soybean checkoff directs its funding toward several categories, including adhesives, coatings, printing inks, lubricants, plastics, fibers and solvents. Consumers can find some of this year's new products, including a soy-based wood floor stain from Rust-Oleum, a line of Simmons mattresses that include soy-based foam, and a soy-based degreaser and adhesive remover available at retail outlets such as The Home Depot and Ace Hardware. Others, such as a soy-based adhesive used to manufacture plywood, a soy-based pavement crack sealant and soy-based bioremediation agents used in environmental cleanup, will mostly be noticed by industrial users. While the products represent a diverse range of categories, they generally have two attributes in common: They're sustainable and they boost demand for U.S. soy. The soybean checkoff works to advance the sustainability movement, in part, by developing and promoting soy-based products. Many of the projects the soybean checkoff funds led to products that use soybean oil as a replacement for petrochemicals, making them more renewable and more environmentally friendly than their non-soy-based counterparts. Statistics show the checkoff's efforts to expand industrial demand for soybean oil work. By 2010, industrial use is expected to be between 1.15 and 1.35 billion pounds of soybean oil, or the oil from nearly 120 million bushels. That's up from 80 million bushels used in 2008. The list of new soy-based products represents an annual culmination of a three-to-five-year process that began with researchers trying to persuade soybean checkoff farmer-leaders that their ideas held potential for increasing soy demand. "We solicit applications, review the concepts and select them based on their technical merit and market potential," Ross explained. "Number one, the product must be technically feasible - can it be done? And, number two, just because it can be done, is it viable? What's the product's market value, and how many bushels of soybeans will it use?"
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