Economic value and environmental impact of soybean meal in poultry and swine diets

The objective of this analysis was to quantify how changes in the protein content of soybean meal (SBM) impact the economic value and environmental impact of SBM used in U.S. poultry and swine diets. A recent study presented a framework to quantify SBM value in poultry and swine diets using digestible amino acids and energy as the primary determinants of end-user value. While improved SBM nutritional composition (higher digestible amino acids and energy) results in increased SBM market value, one aspect not well understood is how ingredient quality and composition impact the environmental assessment when formulating animal diets. This study demonstrated that the economic value of SBM in swine and poultry diets increases as SBM protein (amino acids and energy) increases and that this coincides with reduced dietary Green House Gas (GHG) emissions (gCO2e/kg). Least cost diet formulation was conducted on poultry and swine diets to estimate inclusion, diet cost, relative value of SBM, and GHG emissions for the calculated diets. Results show that for each 1% increase in SBM crude protein (CP) from 44.0% to 48.0%, SBM value increases over $19 per metric ton while reducing GHG emissions by 5.5% in poultry diets, and SBM value increases almost $16 per metric ton while reducing GHG emissions 4.8% in swine diets. Furthermore, increasing SBM CP content was confirmed to be favorable financially due to diet cost reductions in poultry and swine diets, with improvements in GHG emissions (gCO2e/kg), and estimated nitrogen excretion being unchanged across SBM CP.