A Giant-Sized History of Soybeans

I write daily about the economics surrounding soybeans and other grains commodities, but I can honestly say I know very little about the HISTORY of soybeans. When were soybeans first cultivated? And where? What was the path that lead soybeans to becoming so massively important in global trade?

The thing is: there’s information EVERYWHERE about soybeans. You might not know this, but soybeans are kind of a big deal. As I dig through articles, names and dates cross paths and I get confused about what happened when and who did what. I’ve decided to organize this information in a chronological list in an attempt to better clarify soybeans’ journey through time.

Be prepared to be amazed… Soybeans are actually pretty cool.

The history of world soybean production and trade can be divided into six major phases

Phase 1: All production and Trade in East Asia (from ancient times to 1907)

Since ancient times, China had been the world’s foremost soybean producing country. In the earliest period for which we have records (1909-1913), China proper (not including Manchuria) produced an estimated 71.5% of the world’s soybeans, much more than all other countries combined. Other major producers were Manchuria (16.5%), Japan (5.9%), Korea (5.5%), and Indonesia (Dutch East Indies, less than 1%). For centuries, Manchuria and north China had shipped soybeans by boat to southern Chinese ports and by the late 1800s exports from Manchuria to Japan increased rapidly, especially after China made special trade concessions at the end of the Sino-Japanese War in 1895.

Phase 2: Expansion of Soybean Exports from Manchuria to the West (1908-1930)

In 1908 the first shipment of soybeans to the West was made by Japanese firms from Manchuria to England. During the next two decades, exports of soybeans and soy oil from Manchuria to Europe increased rapidly, stimulating an expansion of soybean production in Manchuria from 1 million tonnes in 1908 to 5.4 million tonnes in 1930, and increasing Manchuria’s share of the world market during this period from 16.5% to 42.5%. Soybean production in China proper during this period stayed about constant at 5.4 million tonnes per year.

Phase 3: Rise of Soybean Production in the United States and Decline of Exports from Manchuria to Europe (1931-1941)

Starting in the early 1930s, America began to emerge as a major soybean producer, passing Japan in 1931, Korea in 1934, and almost overtaking Manchuria in 1941. During this same period, soybean exports from Manchuria to Europe began a steady decline, largely due to dissatisfaction by European soybean processors with the quality of Manchurian soybeans, oil, and presscake. The advent of World War II in 1940 disrupted soybean trade between Manchuria and Europe, reducing it to virtually zero by 1941; it was never resumed after the war. Because of the rise in US production and the fall in trade with Europe, Manchuria’s soybean production by 1940 had fallen to less than 60% of its 1930 peak, and Manchuria’s share of world production had fallen from its peak of 42.5% to 25.5%.

Phase 4: Domination of the US as the World’s Leading Producer (1942-1956)

Spurred since 1940 by a wartime need for domestic sources of fats, oils, and meal, the United States doubled its soybean production between 1941 and 1942, passing both Manchuria and China in one year to become the world’s leading soybean producing country, a lead which has been maintained ever since, except for 1947 when China took it back for one year. In the brief period from 1930-1942, America’s share of world production had skyrocketed from 3% to 46.5%. Manchuria’s and China’s share of world production continued their steady decline since 1930; in 1954 the production statistics of the two countries were merged.

Phase 5: Leadership of the West Over Asia in Production and Rise of the US as a Major Exporter (1957-1970)

Prior to 1956, the majority of the world’s soybeans had been produced in Asia. However, in that year the center of world soybean production shifted to the western hemisphere as the United States passed Asia in total production. At about the same time, the US emerged as the world’s leading exporter of soybeans, soy oil, and soybean meal. Asia’s total production remained at basically the same level from 1922-1979.

Phase 6: The Rise of Latin America (1971 to present)

Starting in the early 1970s, Latin America, led by Brazil, began to emerge as a major soybean producing area. In 1974, Brazil’s production passed that of China and in 1975 Latin America’s total production, the major producers being Brazil and Argentina, passed that of Asia. Latin America also emerged as a major soybean exporter. The rise of production in Latin America caused America’s share of world production to fall from its peak of 76.1% in 1969, to 34% in 2017.

A Giant-Sized History of Soybeans

Check out the below list of interesting facts and #DYK about soybean history, uses, and production I’ve compiled during this digital exploration.

• Soybeans originated in Southeast Asia and bore little resemblance to their present cultivated descendants.
• In 2853BC, Emperor Sheng-Nung of China named five sacred plants: soybeans, rice, wheat, barley, and millet.
• Soybean plants were domesticated between 17th and 11th century BC in the eastern half of China where they were cultivated into a food crop.
• The earliest known name for the soybean was shu , a term used in north China as early as the 11th century BC.
• In the Kuan-tzu , a work attributed to a statesman of the 7th century BC but not actually compiled until Han times, it is stated that an army sent to punish the Mountain Jung brought back “winter onions and soybeans ( Jung-shu ) for dissemination throughout the various states.” This expedition is known to have taken place in 664 BC.
• The Ku-liang commentaries on the Ch’un-ch’iu (Spring and Autumn Annals) contain an entry for the year 663 BC, in which the lord of Ch’i sent some newly acquired soybeans to the lord of Lu as a personal present.
• Although soybeans were known in China before 1000 BC, they did not become widely disseminated until after 664 BC.
• Tofu-making was first recorded during the Chinese Han dynasty some 2,000 years ago. Chinese legend ascribes its invention to Prince Liu An (179–122 BC).
• The term dadou (ta-tou; literally “great bean”) came to be the standard Mandarin term for the soybean, and first appeared in the Huai-nan tzu written in about 130 BC.
• The Fan Sheng-chih Shu of the first century BC has the first detailed information about soybean planting and harvest.
• The full season crop soybeans of northern Japan came from north China via Korea between 200 BC and roughly AD 220 (Han dynasty), the period during which China controlled Korea.
• Ts’ui Shih, in an agricultural treatise of the second century AD, said that soybeans may be planted in the second month (of the ancient Chinese lunar calendar, i.e. April), but “In the third month Orion is in the sky at dusk; when the almond flowers are thick and the mulberries are dark red, you should plant soybeans. This is said to be the best time.”
• 3rd Century AD: The earliest known mention of soybeans in Korean literature.
• In AD 290, The Kuang Chih mentions various varieties of soybeans.
• In 535, The Ch’i-min yao-shu was written. It contained an entire chapter on soybeans and their cultivation, by far the most detailed information to date.
• Mid-7th Century: The earliest Korean archaeological find for soybeans, from the southern Korean peninsula.
• AD 683: The first mention of soyfoods (soy sauce and miso) in Korean literature.
• AD 712: The earliest Japanese reference to the soybean is in the classic Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters).
• In 730, the Todaiji Shosoin Monjo was written in Japan. It stated that taxes were being paid in miso and hishio, and contained tax receipts from the following year for soy nuggets.
• In 840, Soybeans and azuki beans were used as an emergency food to relieve a food shortages in Japan [in the Zoku Nihon Koki (Vol. 9) and Reishukai (Vol. 13)].
• The Nihon Sandai Jitsuroku (Vol. 14) reported that in AD 867 Japanese farmers burnt a holly mountain in order to grow soybeans.
• Very little is known about the origin of soy oil ( douyu ) in China. The earliest known reference appears in the Wu-lei hsiang-kan chih, said to have been written by Su Shih in the late 11th century AD. It stated that “Soy oil may be mixed with tung oil when caulking boats.”
• Since its first appearance in the 11th century AD, the Chinese term for “soy oil” has been written with the two characters meaning “bean” and “oil.”
• The Chinese term for the presscake first appeared in during the 1400s.
• During the Age of Discovery, the 14th and 15th centuries, soybeans, compared with other crops, were slow to diffuse out of East Asia (perhaps because in its home territory it was not widely consumed in the form of beans, but rather in the form of foods such as tofu, miso, soy sauce, and tempeh).
• The dissemination of soybeans and soyfoods from Asia to Europe can be divided into five phases: (1) European travelers tasting and describing soyfoods in East Asia but without mention of soybeans (1597-1705); (2) European travelers first describing the soybean plant and realizing the connection between the plant and the foods (from 1712); (3) Europeans growing soybeans in botanical gardens in Europe (from the early 1700s); (4) Europeans using domestically grown soybeans as foods (from 1858) and as ingredients to make soyfoods such as tofu (from 1880); and (5) expansion of soybean cultivation as an experimental commercial crop (from 1875).
• North America has no indigenous soybeans. The earliest date of arrival is highly speculative, but it may have been as early as 1565 (via the first Chinatown in the New World, which was in Acapulco, Mexico).
• The earliest known reference to soy oil as a food appears in the Pen-ts’ao kang-mu (1578-97), China’s famous and voluminous materia medica written by Li Shih-chen. The passage reads: “Yellow soybean. The flavor of soy oil is acrid and sweet. It is heating and mildly toxic. As a cure, it may be applied as a plaster on sores and to alleviate baldness.”
• AD 1597: The first description of soyfoods by a European, when Francesco Carletti, a Florentine visiting Nagasaki, Japan, described miso.
• In 1613, the English Captain John Saris described tofu in Japan; this was the first mention of a soyfood in English.
• AD 1653 – 1670: The earliest (European) written description of the soybean plant was by Dutch naturalist George Eberhard Rumpf, who described the plants of Amboina (today’s Ambon), in the Moluccas in East Indonesia.
• In 1665, the Italian Friar Domingo Navarrete described tofu in China and Manila, Philippines.
• Early shipping records from the Hague show that in 1668 twelve kegs of shoyu were shipped from Japan to Coromandel Coast of southeast India.
• In 1670, Dutch traders started to import soy sauce from Japan to France at the request of Louis XIV, who used it as a seasoning at his sumptuous palace banquets.
• In 1679, the Englishman John Locke made the earliest known mention of a term closely related to “soy” in his Journals.
• In 1679, the philosopher John Locke mentioned that soy sauce, imported from the East Indies, was available at a particular restaurant in London.
• In 1688, the Englishman Dampier described soy sauce in Japan.
• The first Westerner to understand the relationship between soybeans and soyfoods was Englebert Kaempfer, a brilliant, self-educated German scientist and traveler, who lived in Japan from 1690-1692.
• In 1696, the Englishman J. Ovington stated in his Voyage to Surat : “Souy is the choicest of all Sawces.”
• In 1699, the Englishman Dampier, in his Voyages, first spelled the word as it is spelled in America today: “I have been told that soy is made partly with a fishy composition . . . “
• During the 1700s, soy sauce became the first truly popular soyfood in Europe.
•  In 1705, the Englishman Dale first used the term “soia.”
• In 1705, the English botanist Dale, who had studied the soybean in Japan, reported that European pharmacologists were familiar with soybeans and with the culinary value of soy sauce.
• Prior to 1712 no one in Europe understood how shoyu or any other soyfood was made, nor did they realize that these were soyfoods, made from soybeans.
• A turning point in soyfoods history came in 1712, when the German traveler and scientist Englebert Kaempfer published his famous book Amoenitatum Exoticarum (exotic novelties, also entitled Amoentitates Exoticae ). This book gave the earliest known European description of the soybean plant (accompanied by a good illustration), first showed that soyfoods (shoyu and miso) were made from soybeans, and gave the earliest known descriptions of how shoyu and miso were made in Japan, where Kaempfer had studied their manufacture from 1690 to 1692.
• Kaempfer’s book, Amoenitatum Exoticarum, was Germany’s first contact with the soybean and soyfoods (1712).
• AD 1726: The first mention of the soybean in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) was by Paul Hermann in Musaeum Zeylanicum, over a century before the first mention in India.
• AD 1737: The first European record of soybean cultivation is in the Hortus Cliffortianus (“Plants Grown in the Garden of George Clifford”) published by the great Swedish botanist, Carolus Linnaeus, in which he described the soybeans grown in this garden at Hartecamp, the Netherlands.
• Soybeans are known to have been grown in the Netherlands by 1737.
• Soybeans are known to have grown in France by 1739/1740.
• Soybeans were probably first received in France in 1739, when French missionaries in China are thought to have sent them to Compte du Buffon at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris.
• In Mrs. Glasse’s Cookery (c. 1747) it is advised to “Dish them up with plain butter and soy.”
• George Eberhard Rumpf’s classic work, Herbarium Amboinense, was published in 1747.
• In 1751, the Osbeck (a Swede) described tofu and soy sauce during a visit to China.
• In 1753, the Swedish botanist Linnaeus called soybeans Dolichos soja ; this was also its first scientific name, and the first time the “soy” cognate had been used to describe the plant.
• In 1760, shoyu was shipped to Ceylon (today’s Sri Lanka), which was under Dutch control until 1796.
• In 1764, the Swedish captain Ekeberg wrote a 3-page article about Chinese soy sauce.
• The earliest known references to soyfoods in America were by Samuel Bowen. He brought soybeans to the British colony Georgia from China, where they were first planted in 1765.
• In 1766, American Samuel Brown received a present of 200 guineas from King George III of England for soy sauce he had developed.
• In 1767, American Samuel Brown mentioned soy sprouts and soy vermicelli (probably made from soy flour) in a letter and was also granted an English patent for soy sauce.
• The second earliest known reference to soyfoods in America was by Benjamin Franklin. In 1770, he wrote his friend John Bartram in Philadelphia about soybeans and Father Navarette’s account of tofu in China, written in 1665.
• The 1771 translation of Osbeck’s Voyage by J.R. Forster makes the first mention of the present British term “soya,” stating that “The Japan soya is better and dearer than the Chinese.”
• Benjamin Franklin, who was the American Ambassador to France from 1778-1785, befriended Compte du Buffon (director of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, where the first soybeans in France were grown) and arranged for seed exchanges between the two countries. Soybeans were believed to be included in the seeds Franklin received, and subsequently shared with his friends.
• From 1770-75, American Samuel Brown exported to England 1,058 quarts of soy sauce that he had made in Georgia.
• The 1779 issue of the Encyclopedia Britannica states that “This legumen . . serves for the preparation . . of a pickle celebrated among them (the Japanese) under the name of sooju or soy.”
• A sachet in the Royal Museum dated 1779 proves that soybeans were definitely cultivated there from that date.
• In 1785, Bryant (a German) described the production of miso and soy sauce in East Asia. Although some of his terminology was adapted from Kaempfer (1712), his observations were apparently original, although neither detailed nor accurate.
• In 1790, soybeans were planted at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, England, but merely as a botanical curiosity.
• In 1793, Juan de Loureiro, a Portuguese botanist, in his Flora Cochinchinensis, described the soybean plant ( Dolichos soja or Dau-nanh ) and noted that in China and Vietnam soybeans were boiled, roasted, or made into soy sauce or tofu.
• In 1794, the German Moench suggested a new scientific name, Soja hispida (from the Latin hispidus , meaning “covered with stiff hairs”). Thereafter the term “soja” appeared in most of the plant’s many changing scientific names, except the present one, Glycine max.
• In 1775-76, the Swedish botanist and doctor Carl P. Thunberg visited Japan. In his Voyages , published in French in 1796, he discussed Japanese shoyu and miso, and mentioned soybeans.
• In 1804, a Yankee clipper ship from China brought soybeans to the U.S.
• The third mention of soyfoods in America appeared in James Mease’s article titled “Soy” in the 1804 edition of The Domestic Encyclopedia by A.M.F. Willich. This article was primarily about soy sauce rather than about the soybean plant. Mease stated: “Soy, or Sooju, is a species of liquid condiment, which is imported from India, and is used as a sauce for fish. It is prepared from the leguminous fruit of the Soja ( Dolichos soja , L.) a native of Japan.” After giving a detailed description of how soy sauce is made he stated, “Soy possesses a strongly saline taste, but has only a slightly aromatic flavor; it is chiefly used at the tables of the luxurious; and is one of these artificial stimulants of the palate, which deserves no condemnation, especially for vitiated or relaxed habits.” He concluded, almost as an afterthought, “The Soy-bean bears the climate of Pennsylvania very well. The bean ought therefore to be cultivated.”
• In 1821, M.C. Brun de Beaumes, working at Champ-Rond near Etampes, did the earliest known soybean culture tests in France.
• In 1824, the Italian botanist Savi gave a Japanese soybean the scientific name Soja japonica.
• In 1829, U.S. farmers first grew soybeans. They raised a variety for soy sauce.
• In India, although soybeans may have trickled in from China as long as 800 years ago and soy sauce from Japan was imported as early as 1717, the earliest known reference to soybeans was in 1832 by Roxburgh, who described a variety growing in the Calcutta Botanical Garden.
• In 1832, Italian botanist Savi renamed the Japanese soybean he found as Soja viridis. (previously Soja japonica).
• Around 1838, Lea & Perrins introduced a soy-based sauce, which by the 1880s had become known as the famous Worcestershire sauce.
• The soybean was first grown in Italy in 1840 near Verona, on the Lombard Coast of Lake Maggiore, near Mantova, and near Lucchese.
• During the Civil War, soldiers used soybeans as “coffee berries” to brew “coffee” when real coffee was scarce.
• In 1845, Siebold and Zuccarini were the first to give a scientific name to the wild soybean ( Glycine soja ) and the first to ascribe the plant to Linnaeus’ genus Glycine, where it remains today.
• Starting in the 1850s, soybeans and soyfoods truly began to take root in Europe, thanks largely to the pioneering work of a remarkable group in France, the Society for Acclimatization.
• In 1850, Professor Inzenga did experiments on soybean cultivation, publishing his results in the Annali dell’ Agricoltura Siciliana in 1857. He concluded that “The soybean is disgusting and absolutely no use as a bean (to eat), nor is it of any worth as an oilseed.”
• It wasn’t until 1851 that soybean seeds were distributed to farmers in Illinois and the corn belt states in the US. This seed was a gift from a crew member rescued from a Japanese fishing boat in the Pacific Ocean in 1850.
• One early introduction of soybeans into the US was by the Perry Expedition to Japan in 1853 and 1854. (This same expedition broke Japan’s 214-year isolation from the outside world, which propelled the country in the modern world). Perry took along a plant collector, D.J. Browne, who noted in 1854 that two varieties of Soja bean, one “white”- and the other “red”-seeded, both used by the Japanese for making soy, were procured by the expedition.
• In 1853, Ernst of Ohio was the first to refer to the soybean plant as the “Japan pea,” which remained the most popular term until the late 1870s and continued to be used as late as 1905.
• The earliest attempt to propagate soybeans in Europe was made in France by the Society for Acclimatization, under the impetus of Monsieur de Montigny, who began in 1855 to distribute to the members samples of soybean seeds from China.
• The period from 1854 until the end of the century was one of great interest in soybeans and soyfoods. It was a time of abundant creativity and inventiveness and of the application for the first time in history of the principles of a host of burgeoning new Western sciences (especially nutrition, microbiology, chemistry, and agronomy) to the study of soyfoods and soybean culture.
• Pioneering soybean studies were published in Europe by Fremy (1855).
• Soy nuggets were first referred to in 1855 by the Frenchman Julien.
• In 1855, a man with initials T.V.P. of Mount Carmel, Ohio, wrote to The Country Gentleman concerning soybeans: “When eaten a few times they are pleasant enough, but have very little flavor–better when mixed with other beans. Before cooking they must be soaked at least 24 hours. They are inconvenient to use green, being difficult to hull.” This was the first mention of any American eating boiled soybeans and fresh green soybeans.
• In discussing the soybeans brought to America by the Perry Expedition to Japan, Browne (1855) mentioned that they “are employed by the Japanese for making soy, a kind of black sauce, prepared with the seeds of this plant, wheaten flour, salt, and water. This `soy,’ or `soja,’ which is preferred to the Kitjap of the Chinese, is used in almost all their dishes instead of common salt. The soy may be made as follows…”
• Fermented tofu was first referred to in 1855 by the Frenchman Montigny.
• In 1855, the Baron of Montgaudry wrote that “Soybean oil is used in many ways; it is preferred to rapeseed oil and colza oil (refined rapeseed oil).”
• In 1857, an editorial in the American Agriculturalist said of soybeans: “We first saw them cooked upon the table of a friend, and were not especially pleased with the flavor . . . Others are better pleased with them.”
• The first European experiments in using soybeans as food were undertaken by the Society for Acclimatization in France. In 1858 they first used soybeans directly as food, served in the form of fresh green soybeans.
• Fresh green soybeans were first referred to in 1858 by the Frenchman Lachaume.
• In 1859, M. Vilmorin became the first Westerner to make tofu in Europe.
• Starting in the 1860s and increasing during the 1880s numerous Europeans, especially the French and Germans, went to East Asia and sent back detailed firsthand reports on the manufacture of soyfoods.
• Professor Berti-Pichat, in his Tratatto di Agricoltura (“Treatise on Agriculture”) of the 1860s, stated that the soybean was then known by either its scientific name ( Dolichos soia ) or as fagiulo da caffe, meaning “coffee bean.”
• In 1861, the German botanists Regal and Maack visited Manchuria, found a wild soybean species, and named it Glycine ussuriensis .
• In 1862, in the Bulletin, Eugene Simon, who had lived for many years in East Asia, gave a detailed description of shoyu production in and encouraged shoyu production in France.
• The first arrangement of the genus Glycine to closely approximate the presently accepted one was proposed by the British botanist Bentham (1864, 1865). He divided the genus into three sections or subgenera.
• In 1864, soybeans were first exhibited in India at the Punjab Exhibition in Lahore.
• Important soybean research was done in India by Doraiswamy (1964).
• Pioneering soybean research was done by the Frenchman Champion (1866) in China.
• Yuba and soymilk as a beverage were first referred to in 1866 by the Frenchman Champion.
• In 1867, it was recorded that exports from Manchuria mostly to south China included 61,200 tonnes of soybeans, 71,100 tons (tonnes) of bean cake (left over after pressing out the oil), and 3.07 million pounds of soy oil. At this time the chief soybean producing area was the rich Sungari valley.
• Margarine was invented in France by Mege-Mouries in 1868.
• Prior to 1868, all soy oil was extracted by traditional hand-driven implements. In that year the first mill came into being.
• AD 1869: The earliest known mention of the soybean in the Philippines was by Pierre, who stated that the plant was cultivated there.
• In 1869, J.I. Pierre noted that the soybean was grown in Cochin China near today’s Saigon.
• In 1869, G.M. Martens did an elaborate classification of the soybean according to seed shape, but this was of little value botanically or agronomically.
• From the early 1870s until 1900, Austria was one of Europe’s leading centers of work relating to soybeans and soyfoods.
• The period from 1870 to the late 1880s was a time of great taxonomic confusion for soybeans.
• During the late 1870s and early 1880s, Count Henri Attems did many experiments growing soybeans in Austria. He liked soybeans served in salads and was the first person to observe that adding baking soda to soybean cooking water greatly reduced the cooking time.
• In 1872, the first margarine plant started in Germany.
• In 1872, Senft in Germany published one of the earliest chemical/nutritional analyses of soybean seeds (only Fremy’s in 1855 in France was earlier), which was publicized by Haberlandt in Austria after 1877.
• The earliest known reference to soybeans in Russia was in 1873, when the Russian botanist Maximowicz proposed that the cultivated soybean be named Glycine hispida, and that the wild soybean was the ancestor of the cultivated one.
• AD 1873: The first large-scale effort to expand soybean cultivation in Europe and to encourage commercial soybean production was undertaken by Professor Friedrich Haberlandt of Vienna.
• In 1874, the American Agriculturalist first referred to the soybean plant as the Soy Pea ( Glycine soja ), which it distinguished from the Japan pea.
• In 1874, Hoffmann wrote the first Western journal article about shoyu production.
• In an editorial in the American Agriculturalist of 1874 on soybeans, L.L. Osment of Cleveland, Tennessee stated that they were “unsurpassed for table use.”
• Pioneering soybean research was done by the German Ritter (1874) in Japan. He wrote about yuba, tofu, and soymilk.
• From 1874-1891, the Netherlands was the world’s leading margarine manufacturer.
• In 1875, the Dutch lexicographers Gericke and Roorda, in their Javanese-Dutch Dictionary titled Javaansch-Nederduitsch Handwoordenboek, made the world’s earliest known reference to tempeh, an Indonesian fermented soyfood.
• Soyfoods made their first appearance in Russia around 1877, when Horvath (probably the father of Dr. A.A. Horvath) made soy coffee and marketed it in South Russia.
• Soy coffee was first referred to in 1877 by the Austro-Hungarian Haberlandt.
• The earliest known attempt to grow soybeans in Russia was in 1877, when Haberlandt sent at least one variety to a cooperator in Podolia (also called “Russian Poland” by early writers).
• The first culture trials and varietal tests with soybeans in the Netherlands took place in 1877, when Haberlandt in Austria-Hungary sent some soybeans to a cooperator in Holland.
• Roasted soy flour and soy chocolate were first referred to in 1878 by the Austro-Hungarian Haberlandt.
• Following Haberlandt’s untimely death in 1878, interest in soybean experiments waned and they did not attain the place in European agriculture that he had hoped for, in part because they were not well adapted to most European climate.
• In 1878, soybeans obtained from Vienna and Bavaria, probably beans from Professor Haberlandt’s experiments, were grown at the Rutger’s Agricultural Farm in New Jersey.
• Dr. Friedrich Haberlandt’s classic 118-page book Die Sojabohne, published in 1878, reported in detail on his work with soybean culture in Europe and discussed many European applications of soyfoods.
• Pioneering work with soybean cultivation in Germany (primarily in Bavaria in southern Germany) was done in the late 1870s by Prof. Julius Lehman, Director of the Bavarian Agricultural Research Station in Munich and by Prof. Braungart in Weihenstephen.
• Pioneering soybean research was done by the German Langgaard (1878) in Japan.
• Early German research on the shoyu mold Aspergillus oryzae was done by Korschelt (1878).
• In 1878, Langgaard discussed tofu.
• In 1878, the Austrian soybean agronomist Haberlandt reported that in 1877 he had been sent a sample of a soybean plant from Tirol, where it had long been grown and was known as the “coffee bean.”
• In 1878 and 1881, Atkinson, an Englishman and Professor of Analytical and Applied Chemistry at Tokyo University, wrote several early articles on koji and its use in making shoyu (and sake) in Japan.
• Early German research on the shoyu mold Aspergillus oryzae was done by Ahlburg (1878).
• In 1879, a long translation of portions of Haberlandt’s article “On the Cultivation of the Hirsute Soja Bean” is presented in a report that serves as the first reference to soybeans having been tested at a scientific agricultural college in the United States.
• In 1879, Dr. Ernst Wein wrote a 20-page article on soybean cultivation in Bavaria.
• In 1879, Cook, in the first report on soybeans by a US university (Rutgers, New Jersey) included a translation of an article on soybeans from Munich, which mentioned food uses: “. . . a plant whose pleasant-tasting seeds are rich in albumen and fat, in very digestible forms . . . Its seeds, boiled or roasted, have a pleasant taste, and form an almost daily part of the food in India, China, and Japan.” This was the first US mention of roasted soynuts.
• In 1879, Prof. Edward Kinch of Cirencester gave a nutritional analysis of shoyu and discussed the amount of shoyu produced in Japan and its uses in England and America.
• In 1879, Cook, of Rutgers in New Jersey, was the first to call the soybean plant “the soja bean,” which remained the most popular term until the early 1890s, but was not used after 1898.
• Until about 1880, soybeans continued to be regarded as a botanical curiosity from the Orient.
• Starting in the early 1880s, many early publications on soyfoods and soyfoods nutrition began to appear in German publications such as Chemiker-Zeitung, Chemisches Zentralblat , and Centralblatt fuer Bakteriologie, to name a few.
• In 1880, the Society for Acclimatization in France first made a soyfood from soybeans: tofu.
• In 1880, Pellet of France was the first to note that the soybean contained little or no starch.
• In 1880, Stingl and Gruber were issued a patent for use of soybeans and their enzymes in the manufacture of yeast.
• In 1880, Edmond Blaskovics published a book entitled The Soybean: Its Culture, Use, and Worth as Fodder.
• During the 1880s and 1890s, soybeans were tested throughout the US, mostly at university agricultural experiment stations.
• In 1880, inspired by the work of Haberlandt with soybeans and soyfoods in central Europe, Paillieux published his landmark 117-page Le Soya.
• In 1880, Vilmorin-Andrieux & Co., one of Europe’s most famous seed companies, first offered soybeans for sale in their seed catalog.
• In 1880, the Society for Horticulture at Marseilles reported that it was making red and white wine-fermented tofu.
• In 1881, McBryde at the University of Tennessee was the first to use the modern term “the soybean” spelled as one word.
• Pioneering soybean studies were published by Levallois in France (1881).
• In 1881, Dr. Ernst Wein published an excellent 50-page report of practical instructions for prospective soybean farmers and the latest compilation of his research findings.
• Records show that the soybeans were introduced to South America via Brazil in 1882.
• In 1882, soybeans sent from Hong Kong were grown on the Saidapet Experimental Farm in Madras, but the yield was small.
• The earliest known reference to the soybean in Brazil was in 1882, when Gustavo D’Utra, an agronomic engineer, wrote a four-page article on “Soja” and mentioned that he had introduced soybeans to Bahia.
• In 1882, Prof. Edward Kinch published the first chemical/nutritional analysis of miso (two types) plus analyses of tofu, frozen tofu, and defatted soybean meal.
• In 1882, Dabney of the North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station, in the longest and most detailed US report on soybeans to date noted: “Owing to its peculiar composition, containing so much proteins and fat and no starch, it is best prepared with other things to supply the starch, such as potatoes or rice. Prof. Hecke of Vienna highly commends a dish prepared by boiling these beans and potatoes separately, mashing them, mixing one part of the beans with two of the potatoes and seasoning to taste. He thinks that the beans contain so much fat, that no milk or butter needs to be added to this dish.”
• The first Westerner to inquire into the origins of the soybean (and many other plants) was the great French botanist Alphonse de Candolle. In his classic book Origin of Cultivated Plants (1882, 1885), he drew on many types of evidence to conclude (correctly) that the soybean had originated in East Asia.
• Pioneering soybean studies were published in Germany by Meissl and Boecker (1883).
• In 1883, Sturtevant first reported that soybeans had been grown at Cornell University, which would later become a pioneer in soyfoods research.
• In 1883, Meissl and Boecker published the most extensive analysis to date of the chemical/nutritional composition of the soybean seed, and the earliest known analysis of the composition of soy oil.
• In 1884, Paillieux and Bois wrote an important work, Le Potager d’un Curieux , which contained information about soybeans and soyfoods.
• Early German research on the shoyu mold Aspergillus oryzae was done by Cohn (1884).
• Sweden’s first margarine plant started in 1884.
• In 1885, Paillieux reported that the soybean had a number of vernacular names; it was called Gari-Kulay in Bengali, Bhat in Hindustani, and Bhatwan in Sinhalese.
• In 1885, The Vegetable Garden by Vilmorin-Andrieux & Co. in Paris was published in an English translation with good information about growing soybeans.
• In 1886, Stingl and Morawski gave the most detailed information to date on the physical and chemical/nutritional properties of soy oil and of an amylolytic enzyme on soybeans.
• In 1886, Paillieux, after analyzing soybeans and finding that they contained no starch, first advocated their use in diabetic diets.
• In 1886, Dr. Oscar Kellner published on the digestibility of soybeans and soybean hay as a fodder for sheep.
• In 1886, Giammaria of Italy wrote about soybeans and their uses.
• In 1886, the firm Julius Maggi & Co. in Kempttal became the first company in Europe to make a soy-sauce-like seasoning, which also contained the world’s first hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP).
• In 1886, the British etymologists Yule and Burnell published Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases; a second edition was published in 1903. This work contained six early references to soy sauce or shoyu, five of them prior to 1800, plus an etymology of the words “soy” and “shoyu.”
• In 1886, J.J. Rein, a professor of geography, wrote The Industries of Japan , based on many years of travel and research there. He stated that of all the legumes grown in China or Japan, the soybean was the most important in terms of its value, uses, and number of varieties. He described in detail the production of tofu, miso, and shoyu, mentioned the food value of mature soybeans, and was the first to compare soy and animal proteins, stating: “In point of nutriment, the soy-bean is of all vegetables nearest to meat.” His book was published in English in 189
• In 1887, Stingl and Morawski reported on the sugars in soybeans and the iodine number of soy oil.
• In 1887, Mori and Kellner studied the digestibility of diets containing tofu.
• In 1888, Blondell, the first soybean physiologist, did detailed studies and illustrations of the anatomy and physiology of the soybean seed; he confirmed that it contained no starch.
• In 1888, Kellner did the world’s first scientific feeding experiments using a defatted soybean meal, feeding the meal to swine in Japan.
• Okara was first referred to in 1889 by the German Kellner.
• In 1889, England’s first margarine plant was built at Godley, Manchester, by the Dane Otto Monsted.
• In 1889, Dr. Oscar Kellner wrote a short article about tofu, which contained the first nutritional analysis of tofu and the West’s first mention and nutritional analysis of okara (soy pulp).
• In 1889, Schulze and Steiger in Zurich published the earliest known reference to the presence of lecithin in soybeans.
• In 1889, Dr. Oscar Kellner and two Japanese scientists published their classic 24-page article on the composition and manufacture of miso, which contained a description and nutritional analysis of four types of miso.
• In 1889, Schulze gave a detailed nutritional analysis of etiolated soy sprouts, the earliest known reference to soy sprouts in the West, although he was referring to soybeans sprouting in a field, not food-use sprouts.
• In 1890, Watt, for the first time, reported that the soybean was extensively cultivated throughout India and in eastern Bengal, the Khasi Hills, Manipur, the Naga Hills, and Burma, often found as a weed in fields or near cultivation. Watt noted that, even among aboriginal tribes, this plant had numerous vernacular names, which were not modern derivations, indicating a more ancient origin of cultivation than had previously been thought.
• Probably the first country in Latin America to make active use of soyfoods was Suriname. Javanese began to emigrate there in 1890; most worked as small farmers.
• Soy flour was first referred to in 1891 in the Netherlands.
• In 1891, Georgeson and co-workers of the Kansas State Agricultural Experiment Station noted that “The bean takes its common name, ‘Soy,’ from a sauce manufactured from it, which in commerce goes by the name of ‘Soy,’ though the Japanese name for this sauce is ‘Shoyu’ . . . the delicious brown sauce so common in Japan, and which forms the basis of the best sauces in this country . . . Sometimes (the beans) are eaten green when nearly full grown; they are boiled in the pods and shelled at the meal.”
• From 1891 until about 1951, except during World War II, Germany was the world’s leading margarine manufacturer.
• Many soyfoods articles in the prestigious Bulletin of the College of Agriculture of Tokyo Imperial University, starting in 1893, were published in German, and written by both Japanese and German authors.
• In 1893, soybeans were exhibited as a botanical curiosity at the spectacular Chicago World’s Fair.
• In 1893, the Russian-German Bretschneider, in his Botanicon Sinicum, gave extensive information about soybeans and soyfoods in China and was the first Westerner to link Liu An of Huai-nan with the discovery of tofu.
• In 1893, Flagg and Towar of the Rhode Island Experiment Station noted that soybeans were “used for preparing a well-known brown and slightly salty sauce (Soy) used both in Asia and Europe for flavoring certain dishes, especially beef, and supposed to favor digestion.”
• Natto was first referred to in 1894 by the Japanese Yabe.
• By 1894, a soy-based bread called “Asian Bread” was being made at Baune, France.
• In 1894, Schulze and Frankfurt first reported the presence of sucrose in soybeans.
• In 1894, de Negri and Fabris published the first Italian report on soy oil.
• In 1894, Yabe in Japan published the first information about natto in a European language (German and English).
• Sino-Japanese War (1894-95): After winning the war, Japan became the principal market for Manchurian exports, especially soybean cake, which was used as a fertilizer on rice paddies.
• In 1895, Brooks of the Massachusetts Hatch Agricultural Experiment Station was the fist American to use the British term “soya beans.”
• In 1895, Kellner wrote about the production of shoyu and miso, one of the best studies to date on koji, shoyu, and the Japanese shoyu industry.
• AD 1895: The first mention of soyfoods in Java was by Prinsen Geerligs, who discussed tempeh, tofu, taucho (a sort of miso) and soy sauce.
• In 1895, H.C. Prinsen-Geerligs, a Dutch scientist working in the Dutch East Indies, wrote a remarkable article titled “Eenige Chineesche voedingsmiddelen uit Sojaboonen bereid” (“Some Chinese Foods Made with Soybeans”) in which he gave some of the earliest and best descriptions of tempeh, okara, tofu, soymilk, Chinese and Indonesian misos, and soy sauce. It also contained nutritional/chemical analyses of three types of soybeans, tofu, soymilk, miso, and soy sauce, plus details of manufacturing methods.
• Because of the stimulating work of European scientists and the growing prestige of European scientific journals, starting in 1895 the Japanese (such as Yabe and Inouye) began writing about soyfoods in European languages and in European journals.
• Soybean cultivation reached Africa in the late 1800s.
• In 1896, the outstanding article by the Dutchman H.C. Prinsen Geerligs on East Asian soyfoods was published in German. It discussed tofu, tempeh, soy sauce, jiang, and okara, and contained nutritional analyses.
• The earliest known cultivation of soybeans in Africa was in 1896, when they were grown in Algeria by a French agronomist Trabut at a government botanical station. Algeria, then a French colony, was important as a place for acclimatizing plants.
• Henry Trimble’s “Recent Literature on the Soja Bean” was published in the American Journal of Pharmacy in 1896.
• Pioneering soybean research was done by the German Loew (1897) in Japan.
• In 1897, Loew, a Professor of Agricultural Chemistry at Tokyo Imperial University, discussed shoyu production in detail, and recommended ways of modernizing the traditional Japanese process.
• In 1897, the first nutritional analysis of soybean protein in the US was done by Osborne and Campbell.
• In 1897, C.F. Langworthy’s “Soy Beans as Food for Man” was published by the USDA (Farmers’ Bulletin No. 58).
• A major chapter in the soybean’s history in America opened in 1897 when David Fairchild organized the Office of Seed and Plant Introduction (SPI).
• The two-word spelling “soy bean,” first used in 1829 and 1831, was revived starting in 1898 by the USDA Bureau of Plant, who listed the “soy Bean” in their Inventory No. 1 of Foreign Plants and Seeds.
• During the late 1800s, after a number of recent unsuccessful attempts to grow soybeans in Russia, the distinguished agronomist Ovsinski went to China and brought back two soybean varieties, a black and a brown, which he succeeded in adapting to Russian conditions at various latitudes.
• Prior to 1898, there were no more than eight soybean varieties grown in the United States.
• In 1898, Fesca did a good review of the literature on soyfoods, drawing heavily on Kellner, praising tofu as a fine protein source, and noting the potential importance of soybeans and soyfoods for the German colonies.
• Soy sauce must have been imported to Russia by the late 1800s or early 1900s for Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) used a traditional ceramic Japanese shoyu jar as a vase in his living room in Russia.
• By 1899, most of the many traditional East Asian soyfoods had at least been mentioned in European publications.
• Blasedale’s “Some Chinese Vegetable Food Materials” was published in 1899. He visited Chinese markets in San Francisco and described yellow and black soybeans for food use, tofu, deep-fried tofu, and soy sauce. Of deep-fried tofu he said “It is usually cooked in peanut oil before being eaten and, in the author’s opinion, is a palatable food.” He also cited many European articles about soyfoods.
• In 1899, W.C. Blasedale, writing in a USDA bulletin, was able to state that “the soybean is coming to be quite extensively grown in the United States, largely for use as a forage plant.”
• In East Asia the German Asiatic Society of Japan and its journal Mitteilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft fur Natur­und Volkerkunde Ostasiens (“Communications of the German Society for Natural History and Ethnologyu in East Assia”) published a great deal of valuable soyfoods research by German scientists and professors living in Japan, including Hoffmann, Ritter, Langgaard, Korschelt, Kellner, and Loew–all before 1899.
• In 1899, Hosie estimated that 555,000 tonnes (612,000 tons) of soybeans, cake, and meal were exported from Manchuria, including 254,348 tonnes of soybeans, 236,543 tonnes of soybean cake, and 8,627 tonnes of soy oil, which passed through the Imperial Maritime Customs at Newchwang (and were worth 2.5 million British pounds!).
• Only natto, soy sprouts (as a food), and fermented soymilk were unknown in Europe prior to 1900.
• Although soybeans have been grown on a commercial scale in East Asia for more than 1,000 years, the earliest estimates and records of soybean production are those done for Manchuria in 1900 by Sir A. Hosie.
• Starting in the early 1900s, Germany first began to import soybeans, which were used to make many special commercial diabetic foods, apparently patterned after those developed in France and England.
• The Indian Trade Journal of July 29th, 1900 mentioned soybeans.
• In 1900, Nikitin gave data on various soy oil characteristics in a German publication.
• In 1900, P.A. Boorsma wrote an excellent 13-page review of the literature on soybeans and soyfoods, citing 12 key sources and giving details on Japanese soyfoods (shoyu, tofu, yuba, miso, natto) and Indonesian soyfoods (tempeh, soy sauce, regular and firm tofu, and taucho or miso). His discussion of tempeh (he called it tempe kedeleh ) contained a great deal of new information and was the most detailed to date in any language.
• Unquestionably the most creative and influential soyfoods pioneer in Europe in the early 1900s was Li Yu-ying, a French-educated Chinese chemist and scholar.
• In 1901, A. Hosie wrote an important book on Manchuria, in which he discussed soybeans and soyfoods at length. He made the first reference to soy oil in English and gave a detailed discussion of the manufacture of soymilk and tofu.
• Senior Dutch authors of early publications on tempeh include Vorderman (1902).
• In the early 1900s, England began to play an increasingly important role in the European margarine industry.
• The process of hydrogenation, initially developed by the French scientists Sabatier and Senderens between 1897 and 1904, was applied to oils by the W. Normann (a German) and patented in 1903.
• In 1903, Lechartier, director of the agricultural station at Rennes, Bretagne, made perhaps the most extensive investigations on the chemical/nutritional composition of all parts of the soybean plant and on its yields.
• The first soybean trials in South Africa were done in 1903 at the experiment farm at Cedara, Natal (near the east coast) and at two places in the Transvaal (in the northeast interior) at Skinner’s Court and on the Springbok Flats.
• Around 1900, the US Department of Agriculture was conducting tests on soybeans and encouraging farmers to plant them as animal feed.
• In 1904, American chemist George Washington Carver discovered that soybeans are a valuable source of protein and oil. He also realized the benefits of soybeans for preserving good quality soil.
• Professor Loew wrote about dried-frozen tofu in Japan in 1904.
• In 1904, Lewkowitsch, in his famous book on oils and fats, published in London, gave detailed information on the physical and chemical constants of soy oil.
• During the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), which the Russians fought in Manchuria and lost, locally grown soybeans served as an important food source for both armies.
• In 1905, BUI Quang Chieu in Indochina (today’s Vietnam) wrote a long article in French with numerous photos describing in detail the soyfoods used in that area.
• In 1905, Pinolini published an outstanding 3-page article “Della Soia,” summarizing the early history and present status of soybeans in Italy. He noted that black soybeans were then being used to make soy coffee.
• Before the completion of the South Manchuria Railway in 1905, soybeans, oil, and cake were brought down the Liao river by junks to Newchwang.
• In Africa, the earliest known reference to soybeans was in 1905.
• In 1905, Giornale di Agricoltura lamented that the soybean had not yet caught on in Italy, noting that it was becoming popular in France.
• Europe’s first hydrogenation plant in England in 1906.
• Professor Loew wrote about yuba in 1906.
• The earliest known reference to soybeans in Zimbabwe appeared in 1906, when an article in the Rhodesian Agricultural Journal and the Annual Report of the Transvaal Department of Agriculture both reported that soybeans were grown that year at the Salisbury Experiment Station for soil improvement.
• Some of the best early research on shoyu was published in German by Japanese researcher Saito (1906, a 3-part 47-page article).
• In 1906 and 1907, Senft wrote a series of articles about Japanese vegetarian foods with special consideration for their use as long-lasting foods by the Japanese military. He discussed miso and miso pickles, natto, and dried-frozen tofu, making the earliest European link between soyfoods and war.
• In 1907, the German Senft became the first European to mention natto.
• In 1907, a sequence of events started which revolutionized the conception and use of soybeans in Europe and later throughout the world.
• The first large-scale imports of soybeans to Europe began in 1907.
• Soybeans were first introduced in Tanzania at Amani, Tanga, by the Germans in 1907.
• Around 1907, soybeans were introduced to Mauritius by P. Boname.
• In 1907, Ruata and Testoni wrote a 20-page article on “The Soybean as an Italian Foodstuff,” expressing their belief that it looked promising in the Italian diet, especially as a supplement to corn.
• Starting in 1908, there was a dramatic increase of interest in growing soybeans in Africa, as Europe for the first time began to import large quantities of soybeans from Manchuria in response to severe shortages and high prices of oil in Europe.
• When the European soybean import boom began in 1908, Germany was slow to catch on, and only 670 tonnes of soybeans were imported that year.
• The basic concept of treating the soybean as an industrial rather than as a food product, crushing it to make oil and meal, then using the oil to make soap and the meal to feed livestock–this was adopted from Manchuria, where it had developed during the late 1800s.
• Belgium first became involved with soybeans in 1908, when the country imported 11,750 tonnes from East Asia for use as oil and meal.
• In 1908, the Netherlands imported 7,290 tonnes of soybeans.
• In 1908, the Japanese trading company Mitsui made its first trial shipment of soybeans to the Western world.
• Soybeans were first introduced to Nigeria in 1908 by the British looking for new sources of supply from their colonies.
• The Japanese played an important role in introducing soybeans and soyfoods to Brazil. In 1908, some 781 Japanese peasants, the first contingent, sailed by steamer from Japan to the state of Sao Paulo, lured by promises of fortunes and vast farmland, only to find they had contracted to work for coffee barons at slave wages.
• By 1909, extensive original research was being done in Europe on the uses of the soybean oil and meal.
• In 1909, Germans Goessel and Sauer patented a rubber substitute made from soy oil.
• Africa World of April 23rd, 1909, commented on the remarkable growth of European soybean demand.
• In 1909, Gilchrist at Armstrong College did the earliest study in Europe using defatted soybean meal in livestock feeds.
• In 1909, Liardet wrote a 14-page booklet entitled A New British Industry: Soya Beans.
• Soybeans were first grown in Ghana (at that time called the Gold Coast) in 1909.
• Deschamp of the Department of Agriculture in Victoria (Australia) reported that, in 1909, a quantity of soybean seed (variety unknown) was imported from the United States and grown at various locations in Victoria; they did quite well at Lilydale.
• In 1909, L.E. Common of the Hull Manufacturing Co. was granted a patent on an improved process for making soy oil.
• As soybean imports mounted, attempts to grow soybeans in England were started in 1909.
• By 1910, it was estimated that one-third of the frying oil in London kitchens was soy oil, which had replaced cottonseed oil.
• In Germany, pioneering work with soyfoods during was done during World War I by Fuerstenberg, a writer, and by Bollmann, a food scientist and manufacturer.
• By 1910, the Germans were doing culture trials with soybeans in their colonies.
• In 1910, Lewkowitsch, one of Europe’s foremost authorities on oils, published a major report on the soy oil industry.
• By 1910, the German seed company of Haage & Schmit in Erfurt was offering soybeans in its catalog.
• By 1910, the seed company of Dammann & Co. in Naples was selling soybeans in its catalog.
• In 1910, China proper (not including Manchuria, which was then an independent nation) produced an estimated 71% of the world’s soybeans, and Manchuria produced another 16%.
• In 1910, G. Itie, a French colonial agronomist and professor, wrote a series of six very thorough and influential articles on the soybean, and its culture and utilization in tropical countries and in Indochina.
• The earliest known reference to the use of soy oil in margarine in Europe appeared in England in 1910, where it was found to be a “striking success” as a substitute for coconut oil.
• Starting in about 1910, the British (especially British oil firms such as Lever Brothers) began testing soybean culture in their West African colonies (Gambia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Ghana) and in South Africa. Results were not very promising.
• In 1910, Brenier discussed soy oil in China and Vietnam.
• In 1910, Dr. Oscar Kellner and Neumann published further research on the use of defatted soybean meal as a feed for swine. Kellner’s in-depth research on soyfoods, done on the spot in Japan at an early date, was a landmark in soyfoods history.
• In 1910, Sir Alfred Jones shipped soybeans to West Africa for culture trials.
• In 1910, Liardet wrote a 27-page booklet entitled Soya Beans. (a follow-up to the 1909 booklet)
• In 1910, Germany began large-scale imports of soy oil from Manchuria, and was soon Europe’s leading soy oil importer.
• In 1910, German Honcamp published two long reviews of the literature on soybeans and soyfoods stressing that these had great significance for the colonies.
• The abundance of soybeans in Germany after 1910 and the need to develop foods for the looming war led to Germany’s first strong interest in soyfoods, especially soymilk, soy flour, and soy oil.
• Soy sprouts were first referred to as a food in 1910/1912 by the Frenchman Li.
• In 1910, the earliest known patent for soy flour was granted in England to Li Yu-ying, the Chinese soyfoods pioneer in Paris.
• As early as 1910, refined soy oil was being used in large amounts in English foods, mixed with cottonseed oil as a basic low-cost vegetable oil, packed with canned sardines, and added to margarine oil blends.
• In 1910, the directorate of Lever Brothers Ltd. broached the subject of South Africa encouraging farmers to grow soybeans.
• In 1910, a consignment of soybeans was received from Shanghai via an Australian commercial agent there. These were grown for green fodder at Cheltenham and Lilydale, yielding 11-13 tons (10-11.8 tones) per acre. Deschamp published a chemical analysis of these plants but doubted that Australia could compete with Manchuria as a producer of soybean seed, since labor was much cheaper there.
• Denmark first became interested in soybeans in the decade 1910-19.
• Patents and articles relating to soymilk were published by Loew (1911).
• In 1911, the same year the Indian government moved its capital from hot and humid Calcutta to the more spacious and planned environs of Delhi, Hooper wrote “The Soy Bean in India,” an article containing excellent information on the early history of the soybean in that country. He noted that “There is no doubt that certain hill tribes, mostly of Mongolian origin, have cultivated the bean for a long time.”
• The earliest known reference to soybeans in New Zealand was in 1911.
• In 1911, Australia’s first article on soyfoods appeared. W. Bugby wrote “Soy Beans as Human Food,” published in the Australian Daily Post and later reprinted in the Vegetarian Messenger and Health Review. He gave data on the nutritional composition of soybeans plus various home recipes.
• In 1911, Norman Shaw, an English customs official in Manchuria, wrote The Soya Bean of Manchuria , a detailed 32-page report that helped the English to understand where their massive imports were coming from and how. He also discussed various Chinese soyfoods, including jiang (miso).
• Patents and articles relating to soymilk were published by Goessel (1911, 1914).
• In 1911, Germans Matthes and Dahle published the first systematic analysis of the fatty acids in soy oil. The defatted soybean meal was used mainly as a livestock fodder, with research on its value being done at the Agricultural Institute in Bonn.
• The earliest known reference to soybeans in Australia was in 1911, as Europe was beginning to import large quantities of soybeans from East Asia and numerous articles on the subject were appearing.
• In 1911, the Ministerio de Fomento (Ministry of Promotion) in Mexico issued a 37-page booklet entitled “La Soya,” containing translations of various foreign publications on the use of the soybean.
• In 1911, the Victoria Department of Agriculture in Australia imported a large quantity of soybeans and distributed the seed to farmers for experimentation.
• In 1911, The Lancet, Britain’s prestigious medical journal, published an article on “The Soya Bean” from their correspondent in China. It mentioned tofu and soymilk, praised the value of soyfoods in diabetic diets, and gave the nutritional composition of various soyfoods.
• Austria’s second great soyfoods pioneer was Laszlo Berczeller (1885-1955), a Hungarian-born physiologist-scientist who pioneered the use of whole (full-fat) soy flour (Edelsoja).
• From 1911-1913, the New Zealand Journal of Agriculture ran a number of short articles on soybeans.
• In 1912, the Japanese Embassy in Berlin hosted a soyfoods dinner, which was attended by the Austrian scientist L. Berczeller. It impressed him so much that he devoted his life to developing soy flour and introducing it to Europe and the world.
• In 1912, Li Yu-ying and the French agricultural engineer L. Grandvoinnet published a remarkable 141-page book entitled Le Soja: Sa Culture, Ses Usages Alimentaires, Therapeutiques, Agricoles, et Industriels.
• In 1912, the Journal of Agriculture of south Australia stated that “The soya bean has been hailed as one of Australia’s coming crops.” It reported “wonderful results in Queensland” and “encouraging tests in Victoria.”
• In 1912, H. Neumann wrote about soyfoods and their value for human nutrition.
• In 1912, Settimi wrote Italy’s second report on soy oil.
• The earliest known reference to soybeans in Argentina was in 1912, when Tonnelier wrote La Soja Hispida y sus Applicaciones, telling of work in Argentina with soybean varieties, culture, and analyses.
• In 1912, Fischer and Follman in Dresden started to make and sell soy coffee and soy-extended coffee.
• Soymilk was first manufactured in England in 1912. Called Solac, it was made in London by the Solac Company, apparently also referred to as the Synthetic Milk Syndicate.
• Some of the best early research on shoyu was published in German by Japanese researcher Kita (1913). Kita’s article was the most complete and detailed description of the shoyu manufacturing process and industry published to date.
• In 1913, Winkler wrote about soybeans in Manchuria.
• Between 1909 and 1956, seventeen annual soybean trials, spread over 12 locations, were conducted in Ghana with approximately 40 soybean varieties.
• Woodhouse and Taylor (1913) described in detail the soybeans widely grown in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa and felt that cultivation could be most easily extended along the Himalayan foothills.
• In 1913, Monsted wrote the first book about the British margarine industry.
• In 1913, Marschner of Prague, Czechoslovakia, began to market a soybean “coffee without caffeine” under the trademark Santosa.
• Pioneering work was done as early as 1913 by J.L. North, curator of the Royal Botanic Society of London, in adapting soybeans to English conditions.
• Senior Dutch authors of early publications on tempeh include Heyne (1913)…
• Woodhouse and Taylor (1913) discussed soybeans in India.
• By 1913, the USDA had obtained 427 varieties and types of soybeans; the number rose to 629 by 1919, 800 by 1922, and 1,133 by 1925.
• Mollieux (1914) published the first study on the composition and food value of soy sprouts.
• Patents and articles relating to soymilk were published by Fischer (1914).
• In 1914, Grimme discussed the manufacture, composition, and uses of soymilk, tofu, soy bread, soy sauce, and other soyfoods. He encouraged Germany to make more soyfoods, citing Li Yu-ying’s plant in Paris as an example of the feasibility of the idea.
• Stange (1914) discussed soyfoods and their nutrition.
• In 1914, the South Africa Yearbook wrote a long article on this “magic bean,” noting that it could be grown throughout the country and promised to become an important source of food and feed.
• In 1914, Britain passed the Netherlands to become the world’s second largest margarine producer, after Germany.
• Scheiber (1915) discussed soyfoods and their nutrition.
• By 1915, some of the Japanese in Brazil were growing soybeans on a small scale, which expanded and became more active between 1925 and 1940, when roughly 200,000 Japanese and Okinawans immigrated to Brazil, settling in Sao Paulo and northern Parana.
• In 1915, in the first full British article on soymilk, The Lancet noted that Solac looked and tasted very much like milk. One apparent key to the flavor was the use of a lactic culture.
• In 1916, Stockman did the first report on the toxicity of soybean meal extracted with trichloroethylene solvent.
• In 1916, Prof. Laxa of Prague did much to encourage the use of soymilk and developed one of the earliest known methods for making it in home kitchens as a nutritious and economical beverage.
• By 1916, a product called Soya Flour, a mixture of 25% soy flour and 75% wheat flour, was being marketed commercially and used by bakers in making soy bread.
• One of the most important proponents of the soybean and soyfoods during World War I was the German scientist Maurice Fuerstenberg, who wrote two books on the subject in 1916 and 1917. His first book titled The Introduction of Soya, a Revolution in the People’s Nutrition , discussed the nutritional value of the soybean. His second book, the more important of the two, was dedicated to Prof. Haberlandt of Austria. In it he first used the German term for soyfoods, Sojaspeisen , then called the soybean the “culture plant of the future,” which he prophesied would “revolutionize the nutrition of humanity.”
• During 1916 and 1917, the Englishman Melhuish was granted six soymilk patents in various countries; he also made an early acidophilus soymilk.
• Patents and articles relating to soymilk were published by Fuerstenberg (1917).
• In 1917, soymilk was first patented in the Netherlands by Goessel.
• In 1918, Fruwirth wrote about growing and using soybeans in the Austrian Gardening Newspaper.
• In 1918, imports of soybeans, oil, and meal to America rose to the equivalent of 186% of total US domestic soybean production, an all-time high.
• In 1919, William Morse co-founded the American Soybean Association and became its first president.
• In 1919, Morse of the USA wrote that, although the soybean had been grown only to a limited extent in Europe, Italy was one of the four countries having shown the greatest interest in its cultivation.
• In 1919, the USDA decided that there were sufficient acres of soybeans harvested for beans (99,000 acres nationwide) to justify starting to record the figures.
• As early as 1920, it was first shown by Nakatomi and Nibe that the wild and domesticated soybean could be successfully crossed.
• Interesting articles about soybeans, soyfoods, and their relationship to the Belgian colonies were written by Pynaert (1920).
• During the 1920s, soybeans were first introduced to Egypt, Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), and Rwanda.
• Professor von Noorden, co-author of the influential Handbook on Nutrition (1920), recommended the use of soy flour, soymilk, and whole soybeans (boiled in a baking soda solution).
• In 1921, the first collection of soybeans known to contain certain specific genes was started by Dr. C.M. Woodworth and Dr. L.F. Williams at the University of Illinois. This eventually formed the basis of what is called the Genetic Type Collection.
• From the end of World War I until the late 1920s, Britain was Europe’s leading soy oil producing and refining nation, and was also the world’s leader in solvent extraction until the early 1920s, until surpassed by Germany.
• The earliest known promoter of soybeans and soyfoods in Bulgaria was Dr. Assen Zlataroff, a Professor of Nutrition at the Medical-Chemical Institute in Sofia. In 1921 he and Trifoneff (Trifonow) wrote a brochure on the soybean, its cultivation, composition, and value as food.
• In 1921, J.L. North wrote an article about soybeans and soyfoods entitled “To Solve the Cost of Living Problem? A Magic Bean.”
• In 1921, Muggia and Gasca reported on their studies feeding infants with soymilk, in part to treat gastro-intestinal illnesses.
• In 1921, the soybean was introduced to Paraguay by Pedro Ciancio.
• During the 1920s, the soybean advanced from a substitute crop to one of major importance.
• In 1923, Piper and Morse reported that soybeans were being grown experimentally in Guyana, but apparently little came of these tests.
• During the 1920s and 1930s, Leon Rouest emerged as a major pioneer of soybeans and soyfoods in France.
• Soybeans were introduced into Rwanda by INEAC (Institut National pour l’Etude Agronomique du Congo Belge) in the 1920s.
• Bollmann was issued the earliest US patents on soy lecithin in 1923 and 1928.
• The world’s first commercial production of soy lecithin began in Germany in about 1923, using a process patented that year by Bollmann.
• From 1923-1945, Berczeller from Vienna had an enormous influence in introducing a new and superior type of soy flour to all major European countries.
• In 1923, Die Sojabohne by Kempski was published in Berlin.
• In 1923, the Anglo-Chinese Trading Company at Harbin also started refining soy oil to make Acetco Salad Oil, which by 1927 was said to be equal to the best Wesson oil.
• In 1923, Kempski reported that Dairen, Manchuria’s leading soybean crushing center, had 72 mills and a daily capacity of 225,000 soybean cakes (each weighing about 61 pounds).
• In 1923, Piper and Morse in the USA noted that Argentina was the leader in Latin America with work on soybeans, followed by Paraguay; no mention was made of Brazil.
• In 1923, Piper and Morse in the USA reported that experiments with soybean as an oilseed in Victoria and Queensland, Australia, looked promising enough to indicate that “soybean can be grown successfully for seed in these provinces and that Australia would be able to enter into the world’s trade as a source of supply of soybean seed.”
• Senior Dutch authors of early publications on tempeh include Jansen (1923, 1924)…
• In 1923, Fulvio Bottari wrote Italy’s first major book on soybeans and soyfoods, a 243-page work titled Soy in History, in Agriculture, and in Food and Industrial Applications ( La soja nella storia, nell’agricoltura e nelle applicazioni alimentari ed industriali ).
• The term “soy bean” remained the preferred spelling in America until about 1924, at which time the present one-word spelling “soybean” became most popular.
• In 1924, a soyfoods dinner was given by the British Empire League in London, probably in conjunction with a visit or work by Dr. L. Berczeller. Winston Churchill attended and later he published some articles in the London Times about soyfoods.
• In 1924, Rhoad and Carneiro published the earliest known research on soyfoods in Brazil.
• In 1925, Ehrhorn of Agumawerke patented a new high-protein soy flour made from a solvent-extracted soybean meal.
• In 1925, Fiehe discussed the food value of the soybean and soybean bread.
• The earliest selection and breeding of soybean varieties suitable for Zimbabwe commenced in 1925 and continued for the next 10-15 years, resulting in the release of a number of “Hernon” strains.
• Standards for grading and marketing soybeans had been established by the USDA as early as 1925.
• The first successful official Brazilian trials of soybean culture took place in 1925 in Sao Simao, the high plateau area of Sao Paulo. From there the soybean plantation was moved to the country of Santa Rosa in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, where some 60 varieties were tested.
• During the 1920s, relatively little work was done with soybean cultivation in Germany, except by Prof. von Boguslawski at the University of Giessen.
• In 1926, Zlataroff wrote an article in German on “The Soybean and Its Value as a Foodstuff.” There he noted the increased interest in and planting of soybeans in Eastern Europe, published nutritional analyses of soybeans grown in Bulgaria between 1917 and 1922, spoke at length and with the highest praise for tofu, giving recipes and describing briefly how to make it, and also discussed soymilk.
• N.I. Vavilov, a soviet botanist, discussed soybeans in his classic “Studies on the Origin of Cultivated Plants”  in 1926.
• In 1926, the Japanese-run South Manchuria Railway Co. published a 40-page report, Soya Beans in Manchuria. It was calculated that of the 3.87 million tonnes of soybeans produced in Manchuria, 48.6% were crushed for oil and meal; 41.1% of the oil and meal was exported and 7.5% was consumed domestically. Thus total oil production was estimated at 188,300 tonnes (398.2 million pounds).
• It was at the time of the 1926 famine that the USSR began to take a great interest in soybeans and to start large-scale cultivation.
• In 1927, Dr. Bollmann at the Hansa Mill in Hamburg invented an excellent process for making a new defatted soy flour.
• In 1927, Horvath listed nine types of soy flour made in Germany and Hungary.
• In 1927, Trabut, then director of the Botanical Service of the Government of Algeria, wrote “Le Soja Legume,” in which he discussed the plant and soyfoods in detail, and did original experiments on pressure cooking whole soybeans.
• In 1927, the Commission for the Study of Soya, established by the Italian Ministry of War, published a 75-page article in the Giornale di Medicina Militare on soyfoods, including soy flour, soy bread, nutritional experiments, and the results of feeding Berczeller soy flour to humans.
• By 1927, Germany had switched from a net importer to a net exporter of soy oil, and in 1929 soy oil exports reached a peak of 44,000 tonnes.
• In 1927, the two arch-rival Dutch margarine firms Jurgens and Van den Bergh merged to form Margarine Unie, which in turn merged with Lever Brothers in 1929 to form Unilever, the largest oil and margarine company in the world.
• Soviet botanist Skvortzov (Skvortzow) in 1927 published “The Soybean, Wild and Cultivated in Eastern Asia,” containing pioneering research on wild soybeans.
• Early reviews of genetic research on soybeans were published by Owen (1928).
• In 1928, Italian Poggi wrote a 50-page manual on practical soybean cultivation.
• Dyson (1928) wrote about fermented tofu in East Asia.
• In 1928, the soybean was successfully introduced to Samaru, whence it spread into other parts of Northern Nigeria.
• In 1928, Prof. Virgillo Ducceschi of the University of Padova published a major 246-page book titled Soy and the National Dietary ( La Soja e l’alimentazione Nazionale ), containing extensive information on soyfoods nutrition, use of soy flour in Italian pasta products, soymilk and tofu ( formaggio di soja ), fermented soyfoods such as soy sauce, medical applications as in diabetes and infant intolerance to cow’s milk, and the economic value of soyfoods. The book concluded with a bibliography of 120 European works on soybeans and soyfoods published prior to 1928. Ducceschi strongly encouraged the fortification of Italian bread with 10% soy flour as a source of high quality, low cost protein.
• Because of the increasing interest in soybean in the US, the USDA arranged for the Dorsett-Morse Expedition to East Asia from 1929-1931. A total of 4,578 seed lots were collected by the expedition: 3,379 (74%) were from Korea, 622 (14%) were from Manchuria and northeast China, and 577 (13%) were from Japan.
• The earliest known reference to production of traditional, low-technology soyfoods in Denmark was in 1929, when Ferree stated that a soymilk plant had started in Denmark that year.
• By 1929, U.S. soybean production had grown to 9 million bushels.
• In 1929, Colombia introduced the soybean as an experimental crop.
• Early reviews of genetic research on soybeans were published by Matsuura (1929).
• Summarizing the great rise in international commercial importance of the soybean during the 1920s, Langenberg in 1929 wrote a 103-page book on The Significance of the Soybean in the World Economy.
• From 1929-1933, Germany accounted for roughly two-thirds of all European soybean imports.
• From 1929-1935, George Ohsawa, founder of the international macrobiotic movement, paid his first visit to France, where he began teaching about Japanese soyfoods, primarily miso and shoyu (natural soy sauce).
• By 1930, a high-quality whole (full-fat) soy flour developed by the Austrian soyfoods pioneer Berczeller started to be made in Germany under license to the Hansa Muehle company in Hamburg. It was sold under the name Edelsoja (“noble soy”), a term reportedly coined by Berczeller and later used for the soy flour used extensively by the German Army during World War II.
• In 1930, Tsao Lien-en did a review of the history of soybean production and trade in Manchuria, then predicted its impending downfall because of a complex series of high levies in Manchuria, unfair trade dealings by merchants, an outdated and inefficient oil milling industry, poor quality export products, the rapid modernization of the soybean oil milling industry in Europe, and the duties levied against imported soybean oil and cake (but not against soybeans) in Europe and America.
• By 1930, some of the world’s most advanced research on soy oil was being conducted at the laboratories of the Japanese-run Chinese Eastern Railway and the South Manchurian Railway in Manchuria.
• In 1930, William Morse’s article “Soybean Utilization” was translated into Spanish and published in La Hacienda (July-Sept. 1930) and as Cuban Agricultural Experiment Station Circular69.
• By 1930, Germany and Denmark had large net exports of soy oil; the Netherlands and the UK had large imports.
• One of Switzerland’s earliest soyfoods manufacturing companies was Morga, which was founded in 1930 in Ebnat-Kappel as a family business.
• In 1931, the USSR built a large Soybean Research Institute in Moscow.
• In 1931, Tolmachev wrote a 12-page report (in Russian) on Chinese soyfoods.
• In 1931, Horowitz-Wlassowa and co-workers published articles “On the Preparation of Soymilk” and “On the Preparation of Kefirs and Cheeses from Soymilk.”
• Leaving his soybean breeding project in southern France in 1931, L. Rouest went to work in the Soviet Union at a Soybean Institute near the Caucasus doing new studies on soybean propagation. There he cultivated 2,000 soybean species and from those selected the best 600, samples of which he took back with him when he returned to France in 1935 or 1936.
• Lene Mueller did extensive soybean varietal development during the 1930s.
• Senior Dutch authors of early publications on tempeh include Ochse (1931)…
• In 1931, P.A. Webber in the US reported: “In Russia the soybean is taking prominence in the dietary of the people there. `Plant soybeans and you plant meat, milk, egg omelets,’ is the newspaper cry.”
• The first year of net US soybean exports was 1931, when, because of a surplus at home and unsettled conditions in East Asia, more than 4 million bushels (108,000 tonnes) of soybeans were exported to European oil mills.
• Early reviews of genetic research on soybeans were published by Woodworth (1932).
• In 1932, du Toit wrote a 22-page report on “Soy Beans in the Union,” which stated that the soybean, which had by then been widely tested, should be more widely grown and used as a livestock feed and soil rebuilder in South Africa.
• In 1932, Henry Ford acquired a 2,000 acre (810 ha) estate in Boreham, Essex. He wanted part of the land to be devoted to growing soybeans.
• Senior Dutch authors of early publications on tempeh include van Veen (1932)…
• In 1932, the US was exporting the equivalent of 17.5% of its domestic soybean crop, a record high that would not be attained again until 1954.
• In 1932, a new round of soybean variety trials started at the Agricultural Experiment Stations in Madras, Poona, Sakkar, and Coimbatore.
• From 1932-1935, experimental plantings of soybeans started in Veracruz, Mexico.
• Winokurov and Palladine (1932) wrote “Biochemistry of Soymilk.”
• At least eleven Soviet investigations on soybean agronomy were published during the period from 1929-1934, with 1932 being the peak year; all were published in Russian and most ranged from 50-150 pages in length.
• The 1930s saw a widespread growth of interest in using the soybean’s oil and protein to manufacture a remarkable array of industrial products ranging from paints and soaps to plastics and glues.
• Belen’kii and Popova (Belenki and Papowa, 1933) patented a process for “Cheese from Soy Milk.”
• In 1933, the Maharaja became the first Indian leader or ruler to promote soybeans when he held a royal soybean planting ceremony, much as the emperors of early China are said to have done.
• During the 1930s, the US made the important transition from a net importer of soybeans and soybean products to a net exporter.
• In 1933, L’Heureux wrote an article on soybeans and soyfoods in the Congo, in which he discussed food uses and methods for preparing soymilk.
• In 1933, Bogatskii and co-workers published “Processes for making soymilk,” and “Technology for the Production and Methods of Deodorizing Soymilk.”
• Shortly after Hitler came to power in 1933, the powerful I.G. Farben-Trust acquired the license to the Berczeller soy flour patent in Germany.
• After 1933, Chinese soybean production began a long decline, caused largely by stiff competition from soybean producers in the USA and by revolution and civil war within China.
• Interesting articles about soybeans, soyfoods, and their relationship to the Belgian colonies were written by L’Heureux (1933).
• Senior Dutch authors of early publications on tempeh include Mertens (1933)…
• In 1934, Zlataroff and Karapetkov wrote “Biochemical Investigations on Soybeans and Soymilk.”
• In 1934, Torres Herrera in Nicaragua wrote a series of articles about soybeans and soyfoods.
• The earliest known publication on soybeans or soyfoods in Central America appeared in 1934, when Torres Herrera from Nicaragua wrote a series of articles on soybean production and the many food uses of soybeans.
• In 1934, Ligori wrote about the nutritional value of soybeans, which were found to be deficient in vitamins A and D, and in some minerals.
• By 1935, Henry Ford was using one bushel of soybeans for every car he manufactured, manufacturing the exterior from “soybean plastic.”
• Rudorf (1935) did work on breeding soybeans for German conditions.
• The 1930s were a decade of vigorous growth for the American soybean industry. Between 1929 and 1939 soybean production increased by a remarkable 970%, or almost 10-fold, largely after 1935 due to the rapid growth of the soybean processing industry (making oil and meal).
• The earliest known report of soyfoods in Africa dates from the early 1930s, when Catholic missionaries organized soymilk production in Zaire (at that time the Belgian Congo).
• Senior Dutch authors of early publications on tempeh include Amar (1935)…
• Starting in 1935, Mahatma (Mohandas) Gandhi became interested in soybeans as a source of low-cost, high-quality protein in the vegetarian diet he advocated. He had learned of soy from Shri Narhar Bhave of Baroda (father of his famous nonviolent co-worker Vinoba Bhave) who was eating 6 ounces of cooked soybeans daily, and reported that they greatly improved his health.
• In 1935, the Germans helped spur soybean production by distributing selected seeds and inocula, and guaranteeing a specified and very attractive price for the soybeans from a contracted acreage.
• England’s first full book on soybeans and soyfoods was Elizabeth Bowdidge’s The Soya Bean: Its History, Cultivation (in England), and Uses , published by Oxford University Press in 1935. In the 83-page work she praised soybeans as the world’s most valuable legume and encouraged farmers to make a serious effort to grow them. She noted that there were many foods “on the London market under names that conceal their soya bean origin,” and that soy flour was widely used to make soya bread, breakfast foods, biscuits, cakes, and macaroni. Yet she added “It is unfortunate that the inherent conservatism of the English people to anything new has been the cause of past failures to popularize soya bean food products… “
• In 1935, Leon Rouest founded the “House of Soy” (Maison du Soja) at Aubignan in Vaucluse in the southeast of France.
• Senior Dutch authors of early publications on tempeh include Burkill (1935)…
• By the mid 1930s, due in large part to the research of J.W. Hayward of the University of Wisconsin, soybean meal became an accepted part of livestock and poultry feeds. This greatly stimulated soybean production.
• In late 1935, Gandhi wrote several articles about soybeans and soyfoods and published information provided by the Baroda State Food Survey Office in his popular magazine Harijan.
• In 1935, a Leningrad institute published a 40-page report on “Uses of Soybeans in Confectionery,” which contained articles on soymilk, soy cream, using okara in the chocolate industry, soybean pies, simplified method for roasting soybeans with sugar, and preserving okara for use in making crackers.
• In 1936, Rouest wrote a major book entitled Le Soja Francaise y ses Applications Agricoles et Industrielles.
• In 1936, Jean Bordas, Director of the Station of Agronomy and Plant Pathology at Avignon, wrote a 7-page article on soyfoods (then the next year expanded this into a 36-page book, Le Soja et son Role Alimentaire).
• Starting in 1936, soybeans came to be traded as a sideline at the Corn Pit on the Chicago Board of Trade.
• In 1936, the USDA and various state agricultural experiment stations started a cooperative program for soybean varietal improvement.
• In 1936, the Belgian government assigned INEAC to help the Congo with soybean domestication and cultivation.
• In 1936, Gray in England wrote that “In Europe, most of the scientific study of soya products is being conducted in Germany, but only a small fraction of the results has been made public since the aim has generally been the security of patents.”
• In 1936, G.D. Gray’s All About the Soya Bean was published in London. Gray discussed a variety of Chinese soyfoods (including fermented tofu), noted that two companies making soyfoods in England were Dietetic Foods Ltd. and Soya Foods Ltd., lamented that soymilk was not generally available, urged the British government to follow the US government in supporting and financing soybean research and development work, and encouraged the establishment of a “Soya Association” in England to promote soybeans and soyfoods.
• In 1936, the Englishman Kale reported that Mussolini had founded a Soya Research Institute and that soy flour was then being added to the rations of the armies. Breads containing 15-20% soy flour were under orders from the Italian government.
• In 1936, the United States Regional Soybean Industrial Products Laboratory was established at Urbana, Illinois.
• In 1936, Kale published India’s first book on soyfoods. Entitled Soya Bean; Its Value in Dietetics, Cultivation and Uses, it contained 375 pages of excellent information including 300 Indian, European, and East Asian soyfoods recipes.
• In 1936, F.S. Kale’s remarkable Soya Bean: Its Value in Dietetics, Cultivation and Uses was published in India.
• In 1936, the USDA and the state agricultural experiment stations began a cooperative for varietal development based on soybean breeding through hybridization rather than on selection.
• Early reviews of genetic research on soybeans were published by Morse and Cartter (1937).
• In 1937, Lanzing and van Veen published important soymilk research in Dutch.
• The earliest known commercial soyfood in Africa was a soy flour introduced in South Africa in 1937 by a well known milling company and used by a number of gold mines on the Rand to fortify the diets of mine workers.
• It is not clear when soybeans were first grown in Palestine or Israel, but their development and popularization after the 1930s or 1940s was pioneered almost single-handedly by a remarkable man named Eliahu Navot.
• In 1937, Viljoen reported in a PhD thesis and subsequent booklet that there was no local market for soybeans in South Africa, but that recently a strong demand had started on the Rand where a well-known milling company had succeeded in producing a soybean meal accepted by gold mines for use in the diet of native mine workers.
• Basu (1937) at Dacca did nitrogen-balance and growth studies showing that soybeans had higher quality protein than traditional Indian legumes.
• By 1937, enough soybeans were being traded in commercial markets to justify the inauguration of trading in soybean futures contracts by the Chicago Board.
• Sessous (1938) did work on breeding soybeans for German conditions.
• In 1938, the High Command of the German Army (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) published the 71-page German Army Soya Cookbook , containing recipes using Edelsoja soy flour.
• Riede (1938) did work on breeding soybeans for German conditions.
• The soybean was introduced to Uganda from both the United States and South Africa in 1938.
• In 1939, Amadee Matagrin published a 390-page book entitled Le Soja et les Industries du Soja: Produits Alimentaires . It focused on soy oil, soy lecithin, and soy protein ( caseine vegetale ) products.
• Soybeans were first grown in Iran in about 1939.
• In 1939, a special Soybean Pit was installed by the Chicago Board of Trade. This signalled the end of the soybean contract marketing system (in which many soybean crushers or seed companies contracted with individual farmers to buy their beans at a predetermined price) and the start of a free competitive marketplace (with national prices reflecting those at the Chicago Board). Country elevators and grain marketing firms began to compete aggressively for the crop, then sold the beans to processors.
• In 1939, America produced less than 3% of the world’s soybeans.
• In the Middle East, the earliest known reference to soybeans was in 1939.
• It wasn’t until the 1940’s that soybean farming really took off in America.
• By 1940, the U.S. soybean crop had grown to 78 million bushels harvested on 5 million acres.
• In 1940, Gottleib Haberlandt, son of the great pioneer Friedrich Haberlandt, encouraged the Germans to make increasing use of soybeans as a source of oil and protein.
• In 1940, Amadee Matagrin wrote La Culture du Soja (122 pp.).
• Soybeans were first grown in Turkey in 1940.
• Soybeans were first grown in Israel in the early 1940s.
• Commercial scale production of soybeans in Zimbabwe began in 1940, on farms run by Europeans.
• In 1940, Dr. Manuel Gamio and his institute began extensive work in Mexico teaching Indians there how to grow soybeans and use them as food.
• In 1941, Alexandre wrote Le Haricot de Soja.
• In 1941, the Indian Research Fund Association set up a special Soya Bean Sub-committee to carefully investigate the nutritive value of soybeans.
• In Brazil, in 1941, Silva wrote a 133-page book about the soybean and its food uses.
• In 1941, the Swedish Government Food Commission distributed seed of three early foreign soybean varieties for practical growing trials to farmers in the provinces of Oland and Gotland.
• In 1942, Giraud-Gillet wrote a 282-page book, Le Soja: Aliment d’Avenir , calling soy the “food of the future.”
• In 1942, America passed both China and Manchuria to become the world’s leading soybean producing nation.
• There was not much work on soybean breeding in Germany during the 1940s, although some research was published by Sessous (1942).
• When the United States entered WWII, the steep increase in demand for oils, lubricants, plastics and other products greatly increased the demand for soybeans.
• In 1942, a wartime film playing in the USA showed the extensive use of soyfoods in Germany. It was stated that the much vaunted “secret weapon” of the Nazis lay in the methods they had developed for making soyfoods.
• In 1942, the harvested acreage of soybeans in America exceeded sorghum.
• In 1942, a USDA pamphlet was issued and widely circulated among farmers. Entitled “Soybean Oil and the War: Grow More Soybeans for Victory,” it urged farmers to immediately increase soybean acreage harvested for beans from the previous year’s 6 million acres up to 9 or 10 million. The flier closed with these words: “Remember–when you grow more soybeans, you are helping America to destroy the enemies of freedom.”
• During WWII, the Germans made a breakthrough discovery in preventing off-flavor development in soy oil through the use of citric acid.
• One of India’s early soyfoods pioneers was Sasanka S. De. He first became involved with soy in 1943 during the great Bengal famine (5,000,000 people starved to death), when he worked with Dr. B.C. Guha of Calcutta University in making soymilk for feeding hundreds of starving infants.
• In mid-1940, the London Times reported that “The soya has become vitally important to Germany from the food, the economic, and the military standpoint.”
• In 1944, in the midst of WWII, Amadee Matagrin wrote a 72-page book entitled Le Soya, Culture et Utilizations , the first 50 pages of which were about soybean agronomy.
• Starting in 1945, after WWII, imports of soybeans, soy oil, and soy flour increased dramatically, but now the main source of these imports was the USA rather than East Asia.
• In 1945, Rene Brochon had a regular radio program on French national radio on which he discussed soybean culture and the use of soyfoods.
• In 1945, shortly after the end of WWII, soybean growing suddenly came to a halt in Austria. This was reportedly at the instigation of American occupation forces; adapted varieties were forever lost and the plant was largely forgotten as large-scale imports from America began for use as oil and meal.
• The food shortages resulting during World War II provided a major stimulus for interest in soybeans and soyfoods throughout Latin America. In Ecuador the Secretary of Agriculture published a series of large, colorful posters promoting soyfoods as a “Food for the People” to be used in place of milk, eggs, and meat.
• In 1946, Rene Brochon published a remarkable soyfoods recipe book entitled Soya: Aliment Sauveur.
• Around 1946, Brazil became the first country in Latin America to start serious commercial soybean production. That year production passed 10,000 tonnes (metric tons) and by 1949 had reached about 30,000 tonnes.
• From 1946-1948, Desikachar, De, and Subrahmanyan did three human studies on the nutritive value of soymilk; positive and encouraging results were obtained.
• In 1946, Stahel in Paramaribo wrote that soybeans in Suriname were grown almost entirely for human consumption, and most were consumed in the form of tempeh.
• The Canadian soybean crop reached 1 million bushels in 1946.
• The earliest known tempeh shop in Europe (or in the Western world) was started in 1946. Named ENTI (which stands for Eerste Nederlandse Tempeh Industrie or “First Dutch Tempeh Industry”).
• Freitag’s The Soybean: Its History, Significance, Culture, and Use, a 56-page book, was published in 1947.
• There was not much work on soybean breeding in Germany during the 1940s, although some research was published by Oberdorf (1947).
• In 1947, the Commonwealth Mission of Investigation into the Soybean Industry in the USA was created. Located in Melbourne, they published a 54-page report that year on the U.S. soybean industry and the potential for establishing a similar industry in Australia.
• Desikachar and De (1947) discussed the “Role of Inhibitors in Soybeans.”
• In 1948, Sasanka S. De presented an excellent paper on “Soybeans in India” at the annual convention of the American Soybean Association; later appearing in Soybean Digest, it described his and other’s work with soyfoods in India.
• In 1948, Dr. A.K. Smith of the USDA Northern Regional Research Center at Peoria, Illinois, visited China to study soyfoods. His monograph, Oriental Methods of Using Soybeans as Food (1949), contained 36 pages of information on farming conditions in China, the Chinese diet, oilseed production, and traditional Chinese methods for making soy sauce and tofu.
• The earliest known statistics on soybean production in Italy show a high of 2,900 tonnes being produced in 1948, falling to 1.4 tonnes in 1949, then steadily declining to 0.4 tonnes in 1956.
• Between 1949 and 1954, the American Soybean Association (ASA), in conjunction with the Economic Cooperation Administration, the Marshall Plan, and the US Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) began intensive market development efforts for soybeans and soybean products in Europe.
• In 1949, Fiskeby III, an edible type of soybean, was released by Algot Holmberg Ltd. The mean yield for Swedish-grown Fiskeby soybeans from 1945 to 1954 was 1,576 kg/ha (23.3 bu/a) while the high (in 1953) was an impressive 2,266 kg/ha (33.5 bu/a).
• In 1949, two soybean (germplasm) collections were established by the USDA, one for northern varieties (Maturity Group IV and earlier) at Urbana, Illinois, and one for southern varieties (MG V and later) at Stoneville, Mississippi.
• The Canadian soybean crop reached 2 million bushels in 1949.
• After the Netherlands granted Indonesia independence in 1949, some 200,000 Indonesians emigrated to the Netherlands, creating a large new market for tempeh, tofu, and other traditional Indonesian soyfoods. Research on tempeh was also stimulated.
• In the early 1950s, soybean meal became available as a low-cost, high protein feed ingredient, triggering an explosion in U.S. livestock and poultry production.
• Starting in the early 1950s, soybean breeding objectives began to change from the initial primary emphasis on yield to include other traits which would help expand production, such as resistance to various diseases and to shattering and lodging, and suitability to mechanical harvesting.
• The first new soyfood to be introduced in England in the postwar period was Canned Soya Beans in Tomato Sauce, launched in the late 1950s by Granose, a Seventh-day Adventist company.
• During the 1950s, the Netherlands was Europe’s second leading user (after West Germany) of soy oil in margarine.
• By 1950, the soybean was playing a significant role in Spain, as the country imported an average of 24,000 tonnes a year of soy oil.
• In 1950, soybeans were first grown in Ethiopia.
• During the 1950s, Israel began to import large quantities of soybeans from the US; these were processed into oil and meal at Israeli mills.
• In 1950, Bergmann, Weizmann, and Willstater at Rehovot confirmed the importance of soy in the fight against world hunger and reported on a soy powder they had developed.
• In 1951, in a book on dairy technology, G. Ray wrote an important review of work with soymilk in France and cited a monograph on soymilk production written jointly by Kaltenbach and Legris.
• In 1951, Prof. Dr. Pedro N. Ciancio, who had introduced the soybean to Paraguay in 1921, wrote a 505-page book entitled La Soja y el Problema Alimentario del Paraguay.
• Australia’s first commercial soybean production began in 1951 in the Kingaroy district of Queensland.
• A number of famous books on soybeans and their production have been written in Chinese, including The Story of Making the Family Prosperous by Growing Soybeans (Hsing 1951).
• The Canadian soybean crop reached 4 million bushels in 1952.
• One of the first companies to introduce soyfoods commercially in Australia was the Seventh-day Adventist Sanitarium Health Food Company. In 1954 they began to market Soya Beans in Tomato Sauce.
• The earliest known report of soybean acreage and yield in Zimbabwe was in 1954-55.
• Harvested acreage of soybeans in America passed cotton in the mid-1950s.
• The first development of soyfoods in the Middle East was done during the 1950s by Eliahu Navot and others in Israel.
• In 1955, a Soybean Genetics Committee was established in the US.
• In 1955, Colombia began commercial soybean production and in the next few years became the second country in Latin America to pass the 10,000 tonne mark.
• By 1955, Spain had passed West Germany to become Europe’s largest soy oil importer.
• By 1955, Japan had become America’s largest single customer for soybeans and soybean products.
• In 1955, Mead Johnson launched Sobee, the first commercial soyfood in Mexico.
• The first large scale use of soybeans in the Middle East began during the 1950s, and increased rapidly thereafter, as Israel imported soybeans from the US and processed them in Israeli oil mills to yield soy oil and soybean meal.
• In 1956, the American Soybean Association (ASA), in cooperation with the USDA-Foreign Agricultural Service, opened its first international office in Japan.
• In 1956, the Soybean Council of America, a newly established trade association under the ASA and the US National Soybean Processors Association, signed a contract with FAS for market development work in Spain and Italy.
• A number of famous books on soybeans and their production have been written in Chinese, including Soybeans (Sun 1956).
• Figures from 1957 showed that French per capita soybean consumption was third lowest in Europe (1.7 kg or 3.7 lb); only Italy and Switzerland consumed less.
• From 1957-1968, Denmark was by far Europe’s largest soy oil exporter.
• A 1957 survey showed that Italy had the lowest annual per capita consumption of margarine (made from any type of oil) of any country in Europe (0.59 kg or 1.3 lb per person).
• A number of popular books on soybeans and their production have been written in Chinese, including Soybeans (Ch’en Min-jen 1958).
• In 1958, Denmark had 43 margarine plants.
• Subrahmanyan and co-workers (1958) discussed the use of soyfoods in preventing protein malnutrition in Indian children.
• The first real crop of soybeans in Mexico was grown in 1958; approximately 300 hectares (741 acres) were harvested. In 1959 some 1,600 hectares (3,954 acres) were planted in the Yaqui Valley, in the state of Sonora, south of Arizona. Thereafter production expanded dramatically.
• The earliest post-revolution statistics on soybean trade with China appeared in the FAO Trade Yearbooks of 1958 and 1960.
• By the 1950s, with low cost soybeans readily available for import from the US, there were only two places in Germany breeding soybeans: The Max Planck Institute at Koeln-Vogelsang and the Institute of Crop Production and Plant Breeding at the University of Giessen. Working with germplasm from around the world, the Max Planck Institute developed the varieties Praemata and Adepta and the Giessen institute developed Caloria, Gieso, and Olima.
• A number of famous books on soybeans and their production have been written in Chinese, including Chronology of Literature on Beans in China (C.N. Li 1958).
• In 1958, Tan wrote a PhD dissertation on soymilk.
• In 1959, Pierre Gevaert and friends at Sint-Martens-Latem founded Lima N.V. (Ltd.) and began to manufacture, import, and distribute macrobiotic foods. That year they began to make naturally fermented miso and shoyu, Belgium’s earliest known East Asian soyfoods.
• In 1959, Ireland started to import soybean meal to feed dairy and beef cattle; 9,300 tonnes were imported that year.
• In 1959, the Netherlands was Europe’s second largest soybean importer after Germany.
• Prior to 1960, the top three importers of soybeans were West Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark. Leading soy oil importers were Spain, West Germany, and Italy. Leading soybean meal importers were the UK, Denmark, and France.
• Important soybean research was done in India by Krishnaswamy (1960).
• In 1960, Rattray noted that the soybean was planted on few farms in Zimbabwe, which seemed to him surprising, considering that the crop (planted in late November or early December) was “ideally suited to Rhodesian conditions.”
• During the 1960s, soybean imports to France increased to an average of about 120,000 tonnes a year.
• Starting in the early 1960s, to promote increased imports, the American Soybean Association opened offices in West Germany (1961), Belgium (1970), Austria (1974), and Spain (1976). Europe, and particularly the EEC, was the world’s largest market for US soybeans and demand grew at the world’s fastest rate.
• After 1960, meat consumption in Europe increased dramatically, spurred in part by the availability of low-cost soybean protein in livestock rations.
• By the 1960s, a small but growing livestock industry in Japan began to use soybean meal as a protein and energy source.
• By the late 1960s, the bad image that soyfoods (mostly soy flour) had gained during World War II were largely forgotten as a new generation of modern soy protein products (isolates, concentrates, and textured soy protein products) was introduced from the USA.
• Soyfoods began to appear in Costa Rica during the 1960s.
• Soybeans were introduced to Pakistan in the early 1960s.
• In 1960, the Soybean Council of America began to operate in Israel.
• The 1960s were a decade in which the foundations of soybean production and utilization were established in numerous countries.
• The 1960s saw a fivefold increase in soybean production in Brazil, from 204,000 tonnes in 1960 to 1,057,000 tonnes in 1969.
• Active interest in soybeans and soyfoods in Third World countries began to increase markedly during the 1960s as the “protein gap” theory came to be widely accepted; it maintained that the key nutrient in shortest supply was protein. If enough protein could be supplied, the core of the problem of malnutrition would be solved. Soybeans were increasingly widely recognized as an outstanding source of low-cost, high-quality protein, however they did not grow well in tropical and semitropical regions.
• To help coordinate and stimulate imports from the United States, the American Soybean Association (ASA) opened an office at Hamburg in 1961, its second overseas office.
• Argentina passed the 10,000 tonne soybean production mark in 1961.
• In 1961, Dutra de Olivera and co-workers published “The Use of Soy Products in the Treatment of Protein Malnutrition,” with emphasis on the use of soymilk.
• Mexico passed the 10,000 tonne soybean production mark in 1962.
• In 1962, ProNutro was developed by a South African company.
• Important soybean research was done in India by Shurpalekar (1961-65).
• In 1962, with the entry of Australia’s oilseed crushers and vegetable oil producer into the soybean market, and with a guaranteed price scheme and an assured market offered by the Linseed Crushers Association of Australia, there was a rapid rise in soybean acreage and increased interest in the crop in all Australian states.
• In 1962, Hermann of the USDA undertook a revision of the genus. In a lucid 79-page monograph he brought together all relevant literature on Glycine nomenclature. While leaving Bentham’s division of the genus into three subgenera basically unchanged, he reduced the number of Glycine species from 286 to 10 and changed the names of several species.
• Soybean imports to Spain started in 1962, with 16,000 tonnes, then rose meteorically until by 1966 Spain was Europe’s second largest soybean importer (after West Germany), with 540,000 tonnes that year.
• In 1963, Mexico passed Colombia in soybean production.
• Soybeans were intorduced to Bangladesh during the 1960s.
• Israel imported 213,000 tonnes of soybeans from the US in 1962.
• In 1963, three Brazilian scientists (Martinelli, Camargo, and Falanghe) from the University of Sao Paulo, Piracaciba, spent a year at the USDA Northern Regional Research Center in Peoria, Illinois, studying soyfoods, especially tempeh.
• Harvested acreage of soybeans in America passed oats in the early 1960s.
• After the mid-1960s, most US soybeans were grown alone, as a monoculture crop.
• During the 1960s, according to the FAO Production Yearbook, total African soybean production increased from about 50,000 tonnes (metric tons) in 1960 to 75,000 tonnes in 1969, for a growth of 50% in ten years. The great majority (80-90%) of these soybeans were grown in Nigeria.
• The origins of India’s modern soybean production success story can be traced back to 1963-64.
• Important soybean research was done in India by Narayana Rao (1964).
• Important soybean research was done in India by Parthasarathy (1964).
• Important soybean research was done in India by Panemangalore (1964, 1967).
• Paraguay passed the 10,000 tonne soybean production mark in 1965.
• The first Nigerian to study the use of soyfoods was Onochie, in 1965.
• The Canadian soybean crop reached 8 million bushels in 1965.
• In Uganda in 1965, Harrison founded Africa Basic Foods, which did pioneering work in developing soybeans as a food cash crop for small farmers, producing and marketing low-cost soyfoods, and educating the people about the value of these foods.
• In 1965, Sasanka S. De wrote “The Present State of Protein-Rich Food Development in Asia and the Far East,” with emphasis on soyfoods.
• After one-time large soybean imports of 92,000 tonnes in 1965, the USSR started large scale, regular soybean imports in 1972, which grew from 300,000 tonnes that year to 700,000 tonnes in 1973, rising to a peak of 1,765,021 in 1979.
• Renewed interest in soybean production in Eastern Europe began in 1966, with Romania leading the way.
• In 1967, Sasanka S. De  presented a paper on “Soybean Acceptability and Consumer Adaptability in Relation to Food Habits in Different Parts of the World.”
• Nutana first began to make soyfoods in 1967 (they introduced two meat analogs, Beeflike and Chickenlike slices).
• Important soybean research was done in India by Swaminathan (1967).
• In 1967, the All-India Coordinated Research Project on Soybean was started as a team effort to develop the soybean as a new protein food source.
• Commercial soymilk first appeared in Brazil in 1967, when Dr. Barretto of Laticinos Mococa introduced Solein, a mixture of 30% soymilk and 70% cow’s milk.
• In 1968, the Coca-Cola Company introduced Saci, a soymilk, in Brazil.
• During the late 1960s, it was found that the soybean fit very nicely into India’s climate and cropping patterns.
• In 1968, Felipe Suberbie and Felipe Tello of Industrial de Alimentos S.A. in Mexico City launched two commercial soyfoods, Isolac and Soyamalt, both powdered soymilks.
• In 1969, Rev. Ejo Takata, a Zen Buddhist monk, began years of pioneering work with soybeans and soyfoods in Mexico.
• In 1969, Monsanto, in conjunction with K.S. Lo of Vitasoy in Hong Kong, introduced Puma, a banana-soy isolate soymilk.
• In 1969, Indian Farming published an entire issue on soybeans covering every aspect of production, marketing, and utilization.
• In 1969, for the first time, America exported more than 50% of its soybeans (52.9%).
• By 1969, America was producing over 76% of the world’s soybeans.
• By the early 1970s, there was a growing emphasis on soybean breeding for seed quality rather than just quantity by altering the chemical/nutritional attributes of the seed. Breeders began working to reduce the quantity of linolenic acid, trypsin inhibitors, and lipoxygenase in soybeans and to increase the amount of protein and of methionine-cystine.
• By the 1970s, soy oil, because of its low price and improved flavor, began to replace olive oil in Europe.
• During the 1970s, soybean imports to France jumped to almost 600,000 tonnes a year.
• During the 1970s, France built up a huge soybean crushing industry.
• In 1970, S. Kanthamani wrote the 100-page Tasty Recipes from Soybean.
• In the early 1970s, Graham carried out pioneering infant and child feeding trials in Peru using formulated soy protein isolate fortified with DL-methionine.
• In 1970, Clark, Mies and Hymowitz reported that 90-95% of the total US soybean acreage was seeded to varieties derived from only six plant introductions, all of which originated in Manchuria (northeast China).
• In 1970, Dovring, Jindia, and Misra published Economic Production Possibilities of Soybeans in Northern India. They found that of all legume crops studied, soybeans were the most profitable based on the criteria of per rupee investment, per rupee return over labor costs, and net profit. “The inclusion of soybeans in the cropping system would increase the income of farmers by 88% without an increase in resources, mainly due to conversion of fallow land. Were cash resources to be increased by 50%, the increase in net returns would be 135% over present conditions.”
• Soyfoods began to be used in Chile after 1970, when the country elected the socialist Allende president.
• By the 1970s, Japanese constituted almost l% of Brazil’s population, and farmers of Japanese descent produced 60% of the nation’s soybeans.
• Starting in the early 1970’s, Australia began to produce large quantities of soybeans.
• In 1970, Rajeshwari Singh wrote Soyahar: Indian Recipes of Soybean. Containing 216 pages and 221 Indian soyfoods recipes, it was one of the most imaginative, complete, and valuable soyfoods cookbooks published in any country.
• Commercial production of soybeans in Pakistan was established in the early 1970s.
• Starting in the late 1960s and early 1970s, pioneering work done by soybean breeders and geneticists and by INTSOY led to the development and propagation of high-yielding varieties of soybeans in tropical and semitropical Third World countries. INTSOY’S integrated programs of soybean production, marketing, and utilization led to major advances.
• In 1971, Yong wrote his MS thesis on soy sauce fermentation.
• In 1971, while Senior Food and Agricultural Industries Officer for FAO at the United Nations, De wrote a 151-page bulletin on the Technology of Production of Edible Flours and Protein Products from Soybean, which described the manufacture of soy oil, defatted soy flour and grits, whole soy flour, soy protein isolate, soymilk, tempeh, and tofu, often on a scale and using equipment suited to Third World countries.
• After congress passed the Plant Variety Protection Act of 1971 (which basically allowed private companies to patent new hybrid seeds), many commercial seed companies began developing new soybean hybrids.
• In 1971, Felipe Suberbie and Felipe Tello launched Sustilac for infants allergic to cow’s milk.
• In 1971, the ASA opened its first Latin American office in Mexico City.
• In 1971, India’s first systematic research on soyfoods development was started at G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, at Pantnagar, with the technical collaboration of both the University of Illinois and the Nave Technical Institute at Shahjahanpur.
• In 1972, Thio wrote about introducing soyfoods to Zambia (Africa).
• The first soy dairy in India was opened by Seventh-day Adventists in 1972 at Spicer Memorial College in Poona.
• First made in India in 1972 by SPRA, TVP (extruded/textured soy flour) was India’s most popular soyfood and by 1981 five companies were making an estimated 4,000 tonnes a year.
• In 1973, a projected shortage of soybeans in the USA caused the US government to place a partial embargo on exports. This showed European livestock farmers their heavy dependence on US soybeans and led the EEC to set the goal of reducing its dependence, in part by growing more soybeans in Europe.
• In 1973, China made its first significant soybean imports ever (255,000 tonnes).
• Until 1973, Turkey was the leading soybean producing country in the Middle East.
• In 1973, the first World Soy Protein Conference was held in Munich.
• The US soybean export embargo of 1973 artificially raised world prices until it became profitable for even the most inefficient producer to grow soybeans.
• By 1973, soybeans had become America’s number one cash crop, and leading export commodity, ahead of both wheat and corn.
• During the 1970s, Brazil emerged as a major soybean crusher, challenging the US lead.
• In 1973, the Mexican government began developing a group of ground beef and pork products extended with 20-30% textured soy flour, usually in the form of Spanish-spiced sausages containing about 48% protein.
• Although it took several thousand years for the world to pass the production level of 1,000 million bushels (27,216,000 metric tons) a year in 1961, it took only 12 more years to pass the level of 2,000 million bushels in 1973, and only six years to pass the level of 3,000 million bushels.
• Between 1970 and 1980, Brazil’s soybean production increased astronomically from 1.2 million to 15.4 million tonnes.
• In 1973, C.E. Clinkard wrote a book titled Soya, The Wonder Food.
• In 1973, the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture and Water started soybean field trials.
• In 1973, Iran passed Turkey and by 1976 had become a significant soybean producer, with an output of over 100,000 tonnes.
• In 1974, for the first time in its expansive history, China became a net soybean importer (279,000 tonnes).
• In 1974, the American Soybean Association opened an office for Eastern Europe in Vienna.
• In 1974, the success of the first soybean trial in Rwanda was such that the diocese of Lumumbashi and other missions decided to set up their own flour milling operation and to teach the local people how to cultivate soybeans for their own consumption.
• During the 1970s, soyfoods came to be increasingly popular in Australia.
• Marketing studies of soyfoods were done by Williams and Rathod (1974), von Oppen (1974), and Rathod (1976). They agreed the four most promising soyfoods for India were soy flour, soy oil, soymilk, and extruded/textured soy flour (TVP).
• In 1974, Brazil passed West Germany to become the world’s second largest soybean crusher, after the US.
• In 1974, the historic First Latin American Soy Protein Conference was held in Mexico City, sponsored by the ASA and the US Foreign Agricultural Service.
• In 1974, Brazil passed China to become the world’s second largest soybean producing country, after the US.
• In 1974, the prestigious American Oil Chemists’ Society held its annual spring meeting in Mexico City and 13 papers were presented at the “Soy Protein Symposium,” a number of them by Latin American Researchers.
• In about 1974, soybean production in Zimbabwe reached the 10,000 tonnes.
• India’s soybean production increased dramatically from only 35,000 tonnes in 1974 to 250,000 tonnes in 1979, a sevenfold increase in five years.
• In 1974, INTSOY organized a major conference on Soybean Production, Protection, and Utilization, attended by 97 scientists from Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.
• In 1974, the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) began to study soybean feasibility and performance as a regular crop.
• In 1974, Yong and Wood wrote “The Microbiology and Biochemistry of Soy Sauce Fermentation,” a definitive 38-page study containing 270 references.
• In 1975, the Soybean Research Institute at the Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences was founded in China under the direction of Professor Wang Jin-ling.
• In 1975, Anton Wolf, a plant researcher in Vienna, began a personal campaign to reintroduce soybeans to Austria.
• As a follow-up to the highly successful Munich Soy Protein Conference of 1973, a Soya Protein Conference and Exhibition was held at the Cunard International Hotel in London, 1975.
• In 1975, Bangladesh launched the Bangladesh Coordinated Soybean Research Project (BCSRP) under the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC), to study the introduction, cultivation, and use of soybeans.
• Soy Proteins Symposium was written by Wilding in 1975.
• In 1975, ITAL developed VITAL.
• Harvested acreage of soybeans in America passed wheat and hay in the mid-1970s.
• In 1975, the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) began work to popularize soybeans and soyfoods in Bangladesh.
• Starting in the mid-1970s, Africa began to import US soybeans, soy oil, and soybean meal.
• In 1975, Berra and Pontecorvo at the Food Science Chemistry Department of the National University of Mexico published work they did on developing whole soy flour, soymilk, and atole for rural Mexico, based on processes developed at the USDA in Peoria, Illinois.
• In 1975, Olvebra Co. started producing a soymilk.
• In 1975, Latin America passed Asia to become the world’s second largest soybean producing region, after the US.
• In 1975, the Mennonite Central Committee published Basic Soybean Cooking for Bangladesh by Ramona G. Smith.
• After the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, there was a big influx of Vietnamese into Australia, swelling the number to 50,000, of which 30,000 are ethnic Chinese. This crated new markets for Asian soyfoods such as tofu, even though the majority of Australia’s 15 million people, most of British descent, had little interest in new foods.
• From 1975-1977, Zimbabwe was Africa’s second largest soybean producer, after Nigeria, and from 1977 on Zimbabwe ran a close second to Egypt, having passed Nigeria.
• In 1975, Thio wrote Small-Scale and Home Processing of Soya Beans with Applications and Recipes, a 59-page book published by the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam.
• A number of well-known books on soybeans and their production have been written in Chinese, including Soybean Breeding and Breeding of Good Strains (Jilin Academy of Agricultural Sciences 1976).
• Argentina’s soybean production skyrocketed during the 1970s, leaping from a mere 27,000 tonnes to 3,700,000 tonnes in 1979.
• In 1976, Jensen and Djurtoft of Denmark published a large report on tempeh.
• An important early researcher on soyfoods was Mohammed A. Khaleque, who in 1976 did work on soymilk and by 1980 was Oilseeds Project Director at BARI in Dacca.
• The growing interest in soyfoods in Brazil in the mid-1970s led to and was stimulated by a national conference held in July 1976 in Porto Allegre. Entitled “Brazilian Soybeans: Facts and Outlook,” it focused on soy protein foods and their potential importance to Brazil.
• The American Soybean Association (ASA) opened an office in Madrid in 1976.
• In 1976, Yong and Wood developed a new quick method for making fermented soy sauce.
• Starting in the late 1970s, the more than 160 years of work on growing soybeans in France finally began to bear fruit.
• In 1976, French soybean production (of 2 tonnes) was first recorded in the FAO Production Yearbook.
• In 1976, Argentina passed the USSR to become the world’s fourth largest soybean producer, behind the US, Brazil, and China.
• From 1976 to 1981, average soybean yields in China rose by 18%, from 989 to 1,163 kg/ha.
• The rather rapid rise of soybean hectarage, yield, and production in China after 1976 was caused by a number of factors, mostly related to governmental policy and research.
• In 1977, Sadaaki Ikata wrote a major book in Japanese entitled Research on the Ancient History of Grains in Japan.
• China first imported soybeans from the USA in 1977.
• The first hybrid soybeans, all patented, became commercially available in the late 1970s.
• The Canadian soybean crop reached 16 million bushels in 1977.
• During the 1970s, soybean production expanded explosively in Brazil, casting the country into world prominence as a major soybean producer.
• Soybeans as Human Food: Unprocessed and Simply Processed was written by Wang in 1977.
• Interest in tempeh in Australia began in about 1977, when McComb published an excellent BSc thesis on the subject.
• In 1977, Whisker and Pamela Dixon wrote The Soybean Grow and Cook Book (64 pages), which drew new attention to both home gardening and soyfoods recipes.
• In 1977, R.H. Moretti introduced the “mechanical cow,” a compact soymilk making machine.
• Pierre Gayroud, a soybean breeder, wrote an interesting dissertation in 1977 on the “Origin and Evolution of the Soybean in Europe,” tracing the origins of the soybean lines in his breeding program.
• Egypt’s first commercial soyfood was introduced in 1977, when Seventh-day Adventists built a food factory in Cairo and began very successful manufacture and marketing of a soymilk made by an innovative microwave cooking process using locally grown soybeans.
• In 1977, soybean production in Africa began to takeoff, fueled by large increases in production in Egypt and Zimbabwe.
• By 1977, Rwanda’s soybean production had jumped to 6,000 hectares, stimulated in large part by installation of a new oil mill using soybeans.
• In 1977, Dominguez’s booklet “Los Mil Usos de la Soya” (The Thousand Uses of Soy) was published as an entire issue of the popular magazine Quadernos de Natura by Editorial Posada.
• Starting in 1977, the Coordinated Services of Public Health in the Mexican State of Guerrero began an active program of introducing soybeans into the diet of the people there.
• In 1978, the Eleventh International Congress on Nutrition was held in Rio de Janeiro; papers on soyfoods were presented by Torun and Viteri, and others.
• In 1978, Marcea Newman and Yoshiko Wright started Australia’s first known tofu shop, The Soybean Factory in Surry Hills, NSW.
• In 1978, following US diplomatic recognition of China and the first large imports of US soybeans, the American Soybean Association (ASA) began to wonder if China’s 1 billion people and 200 million hogs might not be the next big market for American soybeans.
• In 1978, Israel’s first tofu shop, Pillar of Dawn Tofu, was opened by Avraham Sand and Ben Zion Solomon at Moshav Me’or Modi’im.
• Peru established the Institute of Agri-Industry Research (IIA) in Lima around 1978.
• The earliest non-Chinese tofu shop in India was started in 1978 by Westerners near Auroville, a large spiritual community in Tamil Nadu. Called Hannes Bakery, by 1980 it was making 120 cakes of tofu daily.
• A new wave of interest in soyfoods started in Israel in the late 1970s, influenced strongly by the soyfoods movement in the US.
• Starting in 1978, Brazil began to permit the use of soy as a meat extender at levels up to 22%, especially in the form of textured soy flour or defatted soy flour.
• In 1978, the Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux at Farnham Royal, Bucks, publishers of the world-famous Food Science and Technology Abstracts, introduced a new publication, Soyabean Abstracts, with summaries of publications on soybeans and soyfoods from around the world.
• Starting in 1979, France was the only significant soybean producer in Western Europe.
• In 1979, Nestle introduced Bonus brand soymilk (not infant formula) in Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong, becoming the first European company to make and market soymilk internationally.
• In 1979, French soybean production passed the “takeoff” stage, reaching 17,000 tonnes that year and 23,000 tonnes in 1981. All of these soybeans were grown in southern France, with the leading provinces being Haute Garonne, Tarn, and Gers, all near the Spanish border.
• One of the most important developments with soyfoods in France was the rise, starting in the late 1970s and early 1980s of a popular soyfoods movement, closely aligned with the macrobiotic movement.
• In 1979, Bau and Debry at the University of Nancy published on soy sprouts and in 1980 did a review of traditional and modern soyfoods; they predicted that these would become increasingly important in the future.
• Harvested acreage of soybeans in America passed corn grown for grain in 1979.
• In 1979, the leading soybean producers in East Asia were: China (10,500,000 tonnes), Indonesia (570,000 tonnes), South Korea (335,000 tonnes), North Korea (330,000 tonnes), India (250,000 tonnes), and Japan (192,000 tonnes).
• In 1979, IIA and INTSOY published a 96-page Spanish language soyfoods recipe book (Recetario Frijol Soya) containing 80 recipes.
• The Canadian soybean crop reached 23 million bushels in 1979.
• Soybeans and soybean products, by 1979, had become America’s agricultural export superstars, netting $7,500 million that year, making it the top ag export earner with 23% of total ag export earnings (ahead of feed grains 21%, wheat and flour 15%, and livestock and livestock products 10%), and the second overall export earner behind aircraft.
• Total European soybean production grew from a mere 12,000 tonnes in 1960 to 108,000 tonnes in 1970, and 660,000 tones in 1980.
• By 1980, an estimated 98% of the soybeans in Mexico were being used in animal feeds.
• In 1980, China produced a mere 9.3% of the world’s soybeans, down from 44% in 1954 and 38% in 1957.
• In 1980, France’s soybean crushing industry, with a capacity of 3.5 million tonnes, was the second largest in Europe after West Germany.
• Imports of soybean meal grew the most rapidly in France, from 100,000 tonnes in 1960 to 2,800,000 tonnes in 1980, making France Europe’s leading soy meal importer at that point.
• By 1980, there were 7,181 accessions in the US soybean collection.
• In 1980, in a popular article on “The Great Bean of China,” Whisker reported that he had developed several soybean strains (including Gemsoy II) that yielded better than the widely available Fiskeby V from Sweden.
• In 1980 Italy, with a population o,f 56.8 million (the second largest in Western Europe), consumed 300,000 tonnes of soy oil (the second largest in Europe) giving a per capita annual consumption of 5.28 kg (fifth largest, and slightly below the average). Italians had by far the highest per capita consumption of liquid oils and fats in Europe (22.7 kg), but very low butter and margarine consumption.
• In 1980, the UK with a population of 56 million people (third largest in Europe), had the sixth largest soy oil consumption of eight EEC countries, only 4.56 kg per person a year. Soybean crushing capacity was also low (fifth) at 1.4 million tonnes.
• Interest in low-technology soyfoods in Ireland began in the early 1980s, when Jane O’Brien started teaching and writing about these foods in Dublin.
• In 1980, West Germany, with a population of 61,400,000 people, had the highest consumption of soy oil of any European country (550,000 tonnes), the third highest annual per capita soy oil consumption (8.96 kg, after Netherlands and Denmark), and the largest soybean crushing capacity (4,300,000 tonnes).
• In 1980, leading soybean importers in Eastern Europe were Romania and Poland (both at 270,000 tonnes), followed by Yugoslavia (210,000), East Germany (GDR, 72,000 tonnes) and Czechoslovakia (36,000 tonnes). There were eight nations in Western Europe with larger soybean imports than Poland or Romania. Poland, with a population of 35.8 million in 1980, was Eastern Europe’s largest nation, followed by Yugoslavia (22.6 million) and Romania (22.5 million).
• The soyfoods/soycrafters movement and the macrobiotic movement helped to introduce soyfoods in Denmark starting in the early 1980s.
• By 1980, Brazil was producing more soy oil than all nations in Western Europe combined.
• One of the leaders of the soyfoods and soycrafters movement in West Germany was Wolfgang Furth-Kuby, president of the publishing company Ahorn Verlag near Munich, which published in German three books by Shurtleff and Aoyagi: Das Miso Buch (July 1980), Das Tofu Buch (August 1981), and Das Tempeh Buch (1984).
• In 1980, Hymowitz made the first American soybean germplasm collecting trip to China in 50 years, following in the footsteps of Dorsett and Morse.
• By 1980, Mexico was the second largest consumer of soybeans for feed and food (after Brazil), and the largest soybean importer in Latin America.
• In 1981, Hymowitz presented a paper entitled “The History of Soybeans in the West” at the annual Soyfoods Conference.
• In 1981, 76% of India’s soybeans were produced in Madhya Pradesh, 21% were grown in Uttar Pradesh, and the remaining 3% in Bihar, Himchal Pradesh, and Rajhasthan, all in northern India; yields were 78% higher than the highest yielding traditional pulse, pigeonpea.
• In the spring of 1981, Le Compas , a macrobiotic magazine, did a long cover story on soyfoods.
• By 1981, India was the eighth largest soybean producing nation in the world.
• Proceedings of the World Conference on Soya Processing and Utilization was written by Baldwin in 1981.
• The first Brazilian book entirely on soyfoods, O Livro da Soja by Jane Cadwell, was published in 1981.
• In 1981, La Soya y Sus Derivados: Tofu, Miso, Tempeh by Shurtleff and Aoyagi was published in Mexico, furthering the introduction of low-tech soyfoods.
• In 1981, Gil Harrison, ASA’s Director in Mexico, issued an incisive report, “What’s Holding up the Introduction of Soya into the Human Diet in Latin America?”
• In 1981, Daenzer wrote Switzerland’s first book on soyfoods, titled Soya-Eiweiss: Nahrung der Zukunft (“Soy Protein: Food of the Future,” 82 pp.). It focused on textured soy protein, but also discussed the larger picture of soybeans and soyfoods, giving information on history, nutrition, vegetarian recipes, world hunger, and soycrafting as a spiritual practice.
• In 1981, Verena Krieger’s major article, “Yesterday Steak, Tomorrow Tofu,” (“Ieri la bistecca, domini il tofu”) with many color photos, was published in Tages Anzeige. After that tofu became the darling of the Swiss media.
• In 1981, soy oil accounted for about 44% of the world’s edible vegetable oils.
• In 1981, the four largest African soybean producers were: Egypt (136,000 tonnes), Zimbabwe (97,000), Nigeria (est. 80,000), and South Africa (26,000).
• By 1981, in Mexico there were at least six companies making soymilk, three making tofu, six making whole soy flour, and seven making defatted soy flour, textured soy flour, or other modern soy protein products.
• Australia’s first tempeh shops were started in 1981 (Cyril and Elly Cain had a pioneering tempeh shop in Eumundi, QLD).
• In 1981, Wolfgang Furth-Kuby started an organization called Sojaquelle. Sojaquelle was a source of information about soyfoods, of tofu kits, and of tofu equipment and ingredients.
• A number of well-known books on soybeans and their production have been written in Chinese, including Soybeans: Historical Stories (Liu 1981).
• Germany’s first tofu shop was started in July 1981 by Alexander Knabben.
• In 1981, a new impetus was given to soybean cultivation in Switzerland, with Nestle helping to finance an almost dormant research project by a Swiss federal agricultural station to develop new soybeans adapted to Switzerland.
• Around 1981, the first tofu shop was started in New Zealand and by 1983 the country had at least three tofu shops.
• Between 1949 and 1982, Chinese researchers developed more than 200 new soybean cultivars that were used in production.
• To help expand soybean research, the first China/USA Soybean Symposium was held at the University of Illinois in July 1982.
• A number of popular books on soybeans and their production have been written in Chinese, including Soybeans (Wang 1982).
• In 1982, Verena Krieger’s article “Hier le steak, demain le tofu” was published in French.
• In 1982, France could boast six tofu, one tempeh, two soymilk, and five miso plants.
• By late 1982, there were four tofu plants in West Germany and one tempeh plant.
• By 1982, there were three tofu shops in Israel and the soyfoods movement was just entering its beginning stages.
• In 1982, Colombia was the fifth largest soybean producer in Latin America, producing 100,000 tonnes.
• The only known producer of soy sprouts in Europe in 1982, Portman Soyfoods, was located in the Netherlands.
• By 1982, there were four tofu plants (a number of them Chinese-run) and one tempeh plant in England.
• By 1982, there were four tofu shops in Italy, with pioneering tofu and tempeh work being done by Gilberto Bianchini.
• By 1982, Bolivia was the sixth largest soybean producer in Latin America.
• In 1982, the Project for the Mechanization of Agriculture in the Kingdom of Bhutan purchased a large mechanized tofu and soymilk production system from Takai Tofu & Soymilk Equipment Co. in Japan.
• By 1982, Brazil was crushing 14 million tonnes of soybeans annually, almost half of America’s 29.3 million.
• By 1982, soybeans and soyfoods still played a very minor role in Africa.
• By 1982, production of low technology soyfoods in the Netherlands was thriving, with five tempeh plants (including the largest one in Europe) and eight tofu plants.
• In 1982, the American Soybean Association (ASA) opened an office in Beijing, under the direction of Terrence Foley, a specialist in East Asian history and culture who spoke fluent Chinese.
• In 1983, China banned US soybean imports in retaliation against unilateral quotas on Chinese textile sales to the US and, perhaps, to underscore China’s dislike of continued American diplomatic recognition of Taiwan.
• By early 1983, Australia had seven tofu shops, three run by Caucasians and four run by Oriental Australians, and four tempeh shops, all run by Caucasians.
• By 1983, in Europe there were 57 companies making tofu, 13 making tempeh (especially in the Netherlands), 17 making soymilk, 10 making miso, and 1 making shoyu.
• One of the great scientific advances in agriculture was the improvement of the soybean in the 1990s to withstand herbicides.
• From 1996 to 2004, plantings of biotech herbicide-tolerant soybeans rose from zero to 86 percent.
• Between 1976 and 2005, soybean plantings in the U.S. increased by 50 percent and national average soybean yields increased almost as much.
• Although the US soybean collection is one of the largest, best documented, and best maintained in the world, it is quite small when compared with similar germplasm collections of cereal grains such as rice, wheat, or sorghum, which are from two to five times larger.
• Interestingly, as the number of soybean accessions in the US germplasm collection increased, the number of cultivated varieties decreased.
• US soybean varieties can be traced to 11 major ancestors, all introduced from East Asia between 1901 and 1927. None of these is from the Dorsett-Morse Expedition.
• The world’s earliest scientific research on the chemical/nutritional composition of soybeans and soyfoods was done in Europe.
• The USSR was the first nation in Europe and the second nation in the Western world (after the USA) to become a major producer of soybeans.
• Sweden is the home of two large companies that have played a major role in world soymilk production: Tetra Pak International and Alfa Laval.
• The world’s top 10 soybean producing countries as of 2016 are, in order from least to greatest: Uruguay (3.2 mmt), Bolivia (3.3 mmt), Ukraine (3.9 mmt), Canada (6.0 mmt), Paraguay (10.0 mmt), India (10.5 mmt), China (12.2 mmt), Argentina (53.4 mmt), Brazil (86.8 mmt), and the USA (108.0 mmt).
• It was Japan who thrust the soybean into prominence in the Western world, an act which eventually contributed to the downfall of Manchuria as a major producer and exporter.
• Soy plantations occupy over 60% of Uruguay’s arable farmland.
• The soybean is the most treasured crop in Bolivia, and it is largely produced in the Santa Cruz region.
• According to the USDA, soybean production accounts for 3% of Bolivia’s Gross Domestic Product, and employs 45,000 workers directly, while generating 65,000 more jobs indirectly.
• There are about 14,000 soybean producers in Bolivia.
• The Ukraine is the largest producer of soybeans in Europe.
• Half of the soybeans produced in the Ukraine are exported.
• 70% of soybeans produced in Canada are grown in the Quebec and Ontario provinces, and almost two thirds of them are exported to Japan, the Netherlands, Southeast Asia, the U.S, Europe, and the Middle East.
• Paraguay accounts for 3% of worldwide soybean production.
• India is Asia’s second largest producer of soybeans, and it accounts for 3.95% of global production.
• In India, the states of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh account for 89% of the country’s total soybean production.
• China accounts for 4% of soybean production in the world.
• China accounts for 60% of worldwide soybean imports.
• Argentina has farmlands of over 20.3 million hectares dedicated to growing soybeans. Buenos Aires, Cordoba, and Santa Fe are the states where soybeans are grown in the largest amounts.
• Argentina accounts for 18% of the world’s soybean production.
• As the second largest producer of soybeans worldwide, Brazil accounts for 30% of the global production of the crop.
• Soybeans grown in Brazil have higher protein levels than those grown in many other parts of the world, and thereby fetch higher prices in international markets.
• Brazil produces a large quantity of non-genetically modified (non-GMO) soybeans.
• In the US, soybeans are the dominant oil seed, and account for 90% of the nation’s oil seed production, according to USDA.
• The US accounts for 34% of the world’s soybean production.
• At 42% market share, the US is the largest exporter of raw soybeans.

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