Soy Swine Nutrition Research Program

The Soy/Swine Nutrition Research program is a managed research program that has had over a dozen researchers at various institutions working together to discover ways to optimize the use of soybean products in swine diets. Now working with a complementary program funded by the Illinois Council on Food and Agricultural Research, soybean compositional data has begun to be made available from the website SAND, Soy in Animal Nutrition Databases.  

While soybean meal is the supplemental protein of choice in swine diets around the world today, it is far from being a perfect product. Less than 50% of soybean meal is protein, with the remainder made up of water, minerals, and a myriad of organic compounds. While nutrient content, digestibility, and some growth inhibitors have been characterized, there are large gaps in existing knowledge that may be the key to improving the fundamental nature of soybean meal products in swine diets.

Soy - A Superior Swine Diet

Soybean meal is a superior swine diet component because the profile of amino acids found in its proteins offsets the deficiencies in cereal grains more completely than any other commercial oilseed meal. Yet, there are a number of factors with the potential to erode the competitive position of soybean as an ingredient in swine diets. For example, the explosive growth in the industrial capacity to produce key amino acids makes it easier to supplement other oilseed meals with key amino acid. This can substantially improve their nutritional worth in comparison to soybean meal.

Soy/Swine Nutrition Program

The Soy/Swine Nutrition Research program has begun to fill in the knowledge gaps and address some of the concerns. The program brought together top research and industry representatives from eleven institutions in several countries to pursue five interrelated lines of investigation. Together, this group has comprehensively investigated the nutritional optimization of soybean meal in swine diets.

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