It has a meaty tang. As human food, the soybean can be nearly a complete diet in itself. In 1804 the soybean was brought to the United States but it remained little more than a botanical curiosity for almost a century. Then it began to be grown as forage for cattle and as green manure for increasing soil fertility. The boom in soybean farming and processing of the beans started in 1922 when the A. E. Staley Manufacturing Company, previously concerned with corn starch, began such operations in Decatur.
Soybeans thrive best on the soils of our Corn Belt.
In only 30 years, high-yielding varieties together with improved farming and processing methods have doubled both the number of bushels harvested per acre and the yield of oil per bushel. Today, over a hundred processing plants produce half of the vegetable oils used in the nation and two-thirds of the oil meal proteins fed to livestock and poultry. Hundreds of other soybean products now enter into the things we eat or wear or use in our daily lives, and the end is not yet. Argonne National Laboratory, Division of Educational Programs, Harold Myron, Ph.D., Division Director.