• usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    That’s off by an order of magnitude. It’s not 7%, it’s 77%

    But, only a small percentage of global soy is used for these products. More than three-quarters (77%) of soy is used as feed for livestock.

    https://ourworldindata.org/soy#more-than-three-quarters-of-global-soy-is-fed-to-animals

    When we look at the most common extraction method for soybean oil (using hexane solvents), soybean meal for animal feed (not oil) is the driver of demand

    However, soybean meal is the main driving force for soybean oil production due to its significant amount of productivity and revenues

    […]

    soybean meal and hulls contribute to over 60% of total revenues, with meal taking the largest portion of over 59% of total revenue

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0926669017305010

    This is even more true of other methods like expelling which is still somewhat commonly used

    Moreover, soybean meal is the driving force for the whole process [expelling oil from soy] because it provides over 70% of the total revenue for soy processing by expelling

    https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/9/5/87

    • PeggyLouBaldwin@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      your five-year-old study might seem to be relevant on the surface, but you will find that the data sources for, for instance, biodiesel prices date to 1999. it is not ph.d. level research. i would expect something of this caliber from a rigorous high school.

    • PeggyLouBaldwin@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      i’m so glad you found the OWID link. do you see how the chart shows the vast majority of what is fed to animals is called “soy meal” or “soy cake”? that’s the byproduct of pressing soybeans for oil. they literally eat our industrial waste. down at the bottom of the chart you can see the 7% that is fed directly to animals

        • PeggyLouBaldwin@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          it’s not a majority of the revenue. it’s about half of the revenue from beans that are pressed for oil, but there are other uses.

          • usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml
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            5 months ago

            50% of revenue is not a byproduct, that’s a core part! I don’t see much point continuing these conversation as if we are going to claim that we can just ignore 50% of revenue as a “byproduct”. None of these conversations are going to get anywhere if that’s the way things are going to go

            • PeggyLouBaldwin@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              since soybeans can be fed directly to animals, there is no need to make soy meal first. they are placed in an oil press, and the byproduct of pressing them for oil is soy meal. these are bare facts.

    • PeggyLouBaldwin@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      your seven-year-old research about soy markets is outdated. while the oil has always been worth far more than its weight in the bean, it is now around 50/50, even though beans are only about 20% oil.