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Chinese farmers were growing soybeans as early as 5,000 years ago. Soybeans made their way to the United States in 1804, aboard a Yankee clipper ship. When leaving China, sailors loaded the ship with soybeans as inexpensive ballast. When they arrived in the United States, they dumped the soybeans to make room for cargo.
In 1829, U.S. farmers first grew soybeans. They raised a variety for soy sauce. During the Civil War, soldiers used soybeans to brew a soy "coffee" when real coffee was scarce. In the late 1800s, significant numbers of farmers began to grow soybeans as forage for cattle.
In 1904, at the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Ala., George Washington Carver began studying the soybean. His discoveries changed the way people thought about the soybean; no longer was it just a forage crop. Now its beans provided valuable protein and oil.
By 1929, U.S. soybean production had grown to 9 million bushels. That year, soybean pioneer William J. "Bill" Morse left on a two-year odyssey to China during which he gathered more than 10,000 soybean varieties for U.S. researchers to study. Some of these varieties laid the foundation for the rapid ascension of the United States as the world leader in soybean production.
Prior to World War II, the United States imported 40 percent of its edible fats and oil. At the advent of the war, this oil supply was cut. Processors turned to soybean oil.
By 1940, the U.S. soybean crop had grown to 78 million bushels harvested on 5 million acres, and the United States was a net exporter of soybeans and soybean products. In the early 1950s, soybean meal became available as a low-cost, high-protein feed ingredient, triggering an explosion in U.S. livestock and poultry production.
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