It's not the drought per se, it's input costs. Farmers are favouring crops that need less nitrogen and potassium.
Commodities have responded accordingly.
A year ago China stopped buying soybeans from the US is seems ("China Bought $12.6 Billion in U.S. Soybeans Last Year. Now, It’s $0." - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/business/china-soybean-sa...), was that resumed, or who are all these new soybeans going to? Is it all for national use instead of export?
The US also uses a lot of soy beans internally. Prices are down, but farmers are still selling soybeans and with careful management are making money.
But make no mistake, it has caused problems for farmers.
The report from my small hometown farmers is that everything, except for beef, is down right now while the prices of inputs like fertilizer are high. Some of the farmers in my hometown have already sold their land to megacorp farmers in response because they simply can't survive.
But who? Compared to 2024, 2025 had almost half soybean exports it seems (https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/commodities/soybeans), I'm guessing most of the difference was China basically stopped buying soybeans.
But it's a huge difference, yet production seems to be ramping up? I don't understand why they'd do that when the exports are going down?
Thanks for sharing!
Are there different grades of soybean?
The most common use is crush the beans, and collect the oil feeding the rest to pigs. If you read the ingredients at the grocery store, soy bean oil comes up a lot. Soy bean oil is also often used in diesel engines after processing.
Not just technically. It is a relatively common food. A fair bit of it is crushed (i.e. turned into cooking oil). But it is also a product used in a number of processed foods, tofu, etc. Granted, it does seem to be eaten less commonly in the USA, but is more often used in Asian cuisines.
> Are there different grades of soybean?
Most certainly. All crops have different grades. Humans are a lot picker than animals.
Let's take Kansas... the largest producer of wheat in the US. https://www.statista.com/statistics/190376/top-us-states-in-...
Kansas wheat crop down 38% from last year https://youtu.be/QjrhAXzEGDc
Kansas cannot run on desalination plants ... there's no salt water. The gulf coast of Texas is 1000 miles away.
While aquifers do regenerate (Groundwater levels in the Kansas High Plains aquifer see first overall increase since 2019 https://kgs.ku.edu/news/article/groundwater-levels-in-the-ka... ) I'm going to point out that news article has seven years of declines previously.
The aquifer that Kansas draws upon is the Ogallala Aquifer ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer ) and you can see the rate of depletion at https://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/nation... - there are spots in Kansas where the groundwater dropped by 150 feet from before it was tapped with deep wells to 2015.
Yes, most of the earth is covered by water. Getting that water to Kansas and Nebraska and North Dakota, however, is a problem.
In fact, this is the only remaining way I know of to more or less 'homestead' federal land in a way that results in a permanent deed. The rest of the homesteading type stuff was revoked back in like the 70s or 80s.
There are only 3 countries that do: Bahamas, Maldives, and Malta.
Other countries that depend heavily, but not completely: Qatar, Kuwait, UAE.
There are countries in middle east like UAE, Saudi arabia etc. which rely on desalination but they are relying it for the clean drinking water, not for the food generation. They import almost 90% of their food iirc.
The amount of energy required to desalinate all water and the environmental impacts to get that energy would literally be quite catastrophic and I am not even sure if it would be even feasible and food prices would literally skyrocket or food would simply be produced even more less by magnitudes of order.
Desalination uses far more power than AI ever would.
This is where capitalism drives humanity off a cliff.
I hope the “riots” are in the form of voting.
"The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics" (Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith)
https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Po...
The CGP Grey youtube short is an entertaining summary of the books subjects:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
>in the form of voting.
The current US representatives were voted into, out-of, and back into power.
It is interesting, but will likely remain stable. =3
Doesn't escape despotism cycles, and just makes a country a worse place to live.
Historically, without respect for people you disagree with, it only gets worse for everyone. This lesson was simply forgotten by many. =3
20% of the remaining global supply comes from Iran, which has its own issues of drought and war.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is another big factor here as fertilizer prices have massively gone up. Diesel is more expensive too. Many crops this planting season (in the northern hemisphere) haven't been fertilized like they would normally and it's too late now so that will absolutely impact food prices later this year. The Global South will be disproportionately affected.
Lastly, the continued Russia-Ukraine war continues to impact Ukraine's wheat crops. Ukraine is (or was?) often called the "bread basket of Europe" because it was such a significant wheat grower and exporter.
We (the world) are genuinely going to have much more expensive food prices later this year and, in some places, there will be genuine famine.