Hauling grain is a huge part of farming in the offseason for us, but where does all that grain go? To find the answer, I called the expert… my father-in-law. Our corn won’t be found in the freezer or canned goods sections at the grocery store… and our soybeans aren’t in the edamame you eat at the Asian restaurant. Most of what we produce goes into ingredients for other products.
Our corn is mostly made into ethanol as a renewable fuel source. It also goes on the rail to the southeastern United States for poultry feed. One of the facilities we sell to makes food ingredients for soups, dressings, condiments, confections, batters and baked goods. Some of our corn is exported as well.
Our soybeans mostly go to the container market. We haul the soybeans to a facility that loads containers and those containers are either trucked to their destination or loaded on ships and moved overseas. Most of our soybeans go to the Asian market, where they’re either used for animal feed or food ingredients. Container ships go over to Asia with our export products and come back with things that we purchase from Asia like electronics, etc.
Corn and soybeans are used for so many more things than the vegetables you buy at the supermarket. In fact, only a very small percentage of what we produce in the U.S. are used for that purpose. Soybeans are a great protein source for both animal feed and human food ingredients. Corn is a renewable energy source and in more products than you can probably imagine. Both crops have many uses and we are proud to produce them!
