President Donald Trump’s Jan. 26 funding freeze directly impacted the University’s Soybean Innovation Lab, which was forced to close, according to Peter Goldsmith, professor in ACES and director of the SIL.
“I received two executive orders which were worded the same on the 27th of January,” Goldsmith said. “The executive order said to stand down, stop all operations. It caught everyone by surprise, all the employees, all the folks we work with in D.C. and around the world, and the University campus is still trying to figure it out.”
Goldsmith said that he was forced to let go of 30 staff members.
“These individuals are not only unique experts in the field of tropical soybean, but also close colleagues and friends who are now unexpectedly out of work,” Goldsmith wrote on LinkedIn.
Illinois is the leading producer of soybeans in the U.S. and the industry is crucial to Illinois’ economy. According to the Illinois Department of Agriculture, Illinois is the nation’s second-leading exporter of soybeans and ranks third in the export of agricultural goods as a whole, earning over $8 billion worth.
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In an interview with The Daily Illini, Goldsmith discussed the economic impact the SIL generated, its mission and his thoughts on the future of campus research.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
The Daily Illini: Can you tell me about the SIL’s mission?
Goldsmith: Our mission was to establish the foundation for soybean market development in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Soybean was not even a minor crop; very little soybean was grown in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is the fastest growing, largest region in the world that did not know soybean, so it had huge potential for the U.S., not only U.S. farmers but U.S. agribusiness that have a comparative advantage in soybean. It’s something very important to the U.S. economy.
DI: Do you have any success stories that best exemplify the SIL?
Goldsmith: I mean, there are a number of examples, but this example shows the execution of our mission and the success.
Soybean is an industrial crop; you don’t just pop it in your mouth. In Africa, it’s not part of the human diet other than food oil. It’s a commercial crop. With the way economies work, I’m not going to build a plant to process soybeans unless I know there are soybeans available, and I’m not going to grow soybeans unless I know there is a plant I could sell it to. So the soybean economy doesn’t happen unless the two sides get together.
A big choke point we dealt with was mechanization. The bean has to be separated from the pod. There’s no mechanization in Sub-Saharan Africa, or what’s called threshing: separating the beans and the pod. It’s done by hand. So unless we came up with a mechanization solution, we would not be able to establish the foundation for the market development of soybeans in Africa.
The head of our mechanization unit is a person named Dr. Kerry Clark. She’s a professor at the University of Missouri. To make her long research story short, she realized that the mechanization solution was to use existing factories that were currently operating and building agricultural implements, and welding windows, doors and fences to build commercial-scale threshers, so she developed computer-aided design plans. She worked with partners who wanted to include threshers in their machinery lineup in Africa. At SIL, we focus on sustained adoption at scale, meaning we work ourselves out of a job. So Dr. Clark exemplified that with partners in Africa. She has worked herself out of a job, where now she is not needed.
DI: Why is developing soybean in Africa important for U.S. farmers?
Goldsmith: It is, admittedly, a complex economic rationale, but it is very well grounded. The industrial standard in Africa was not soy. This means that in the fastest growing, largest market, the U.S. product is not welcome, and all that demand goes to something else.
For example, there’s a big battle between palm oil and soybean oil. Oil is a base raw material for households and industries, and in Africa, most of it was palm historically. That means that the equipment is set up so everything — recipes, feed, rations and livestock — is not using soy, it’s using palm oil. The machinery is not dedicated to soy, so that means that the farmers in the U.S., their product is not welcome. There isn’t a market for soy, because the market is for palm. This is a missed opportunity. It’s a depression on price, meaning there’s a lot of demand out there that’s being met by something else.
U.S. farmers produce a lot of soybeans, and they’re the most, or one of the most efficient, at delivering it to a market, but the big continent of Africa is not a market for them.
The SIL’s mission was to develop that continent, meaning that you grow soybeans in Africa, so it becomes the industrial standard. For example, soybean factories might spend a quarter of their time using local soybeans, but three-quarters of the time, they need imports. These aren’t easy, strategic ideas to get one’s head around, and you can understand why U.S. farmers would not be that sympathetic, because these are far into the future we’re talking about. I’m not affecting the price of soybeans today, but I am absolutely affecting it in 2035. But now, we’re not going to have that impact and influence.
DI: Do you have any closing thoughts you would like to share with our readers?
Goldsmith: I think it’s a dark day on a number of levels. The enterprise of an R1 university like the University of Illinois — it is about research, it is about long term. If we don’t value the long term, then we’re just a teaching college here.
This isn’t just about a soybean. There are 19 labs in 17 states, and there are other research activities outside of agriculture as well that are now challenged. So this is a big issue for society, bigger than just the little old soybeans.
