Soy Aquaculture Alliance works to increase domestic demand, market

The Soy Aquaculture Alliance is made up of 13 soybean producing states that is looking to create new opportunities for domestic aquaculture.

With the need to find more domestic uses for soybeans, there is a great opportunity for the U.S. to use soybean meal to help grow the domestic aquaculture market.

“93% of all the seafood we consume is imported, and we have more coastal water than any other country in the world,” John Wray, Kansas soybean farmer says.

In Vancouver, Washington, SAA held their bi-annual meeting in conjunction with the fish-feed and nutrition workshop where SAA members gave a presentation to feed producers and nutritionists on the benefits of soy meal in a fish diet.

Currently SAA is conducting research on soy, technology, and species of fish to find the best solutions to benefit the aquaculture and the soy industry.

When researching soy, SAA is looking to find the best nutritional value to make them a more desirable input. They then use technology to find what ways they can implement and design soy in aquaculture to increase profitability. Lastly, they are researching what species can benefit most from soy-based diets and how to improve nutritional values to make soy a solution for all.

“Fish has now become the most popular food-meat source in the world,” Wray says. “We have found that a lot of these fish species can tolerate high amount of soybean meal.”

The high consumption numbers are very encouraging for SAA and should be for soybean farmers as well. With the soy aquaculture market being new, there is a potential for a large domestic market growth. 

The opportunity for a soy-based aquaculture food diet, gives farmers another market for their soybeans to help increase demand for domestic soybeans.

Transportation options through trucking, rivers and railway in the Midwest allow farmers to sell their soybeans locally, to be transported to the coast where they could be used for aquaculture feed.

With the continued work of farmer members of SAA, domestic aquaculture will grow, nutritional value for species will improve, and the demand for domestic soybeans will continue to rise as well.