Soy buyers from several countries visit Illinois soybean farm

WATERMAN, Ill. — Soy buyers from several countries took advantage of the opportunity to see soybeans growing on an Illinois farm during a tour of Ryan Frieders’ farm.

“I’m a seventh-generation Illinois farmer and the reason why I spend time doing meetings like this and inviting you to my farm is because I am hoping my kids will be eighth-generation farmers and we need your business,” said Ryan Frieders, District 1 director for the Illinois Soybean Association.

“The farmland in this area was settled about 1831, so this area has been in cultivation for almost 200 years,” Frieders told the group during the tour which was organized by the ISA and the U.S. Soybean Export Council.

The tour of the farm in Waterman, northern Illinois, was part of the 2026 Soy Connext Conference, held Aug. 5-7 in Chicago, that included hundreds of leaders from around the world.

Frieders talked about some of the changes on his farm including the equipment. He showed the visitors his grandpa’s first tractor — a 1952 Farmall H tractor with 26 horsepower, which sat next to a John Deere four-wheel-drive tractor with 500 horsepower.

“Farming has definitely changed, but with those changes the goal has always been to produce a bountiful crop,” Frieders said. “When I started farming in the late 1990s, if I had 45-bushel soybeans, I was excited. But now if I don’t get 75- or 80-bushel soybeans, I wonder what I did wrong.”

“These beans look really great,” said Abigail Peterson, ISA director of agronomy, during the tour of the farm’s soybean field. “The soybeans have flowers and there are pods developing.”

The global positioning system is one of the most important technologies, Frieders said, that has been added to the farm during his career.

“When I started farming, we were driving everything by sight across the field, and when you miss applying herbicides, fertilizer or even planting a crop, you are wasting time and money,” he said.

The farmer highlighted many benefits of GPS systems and things that can be measured including the pressure the planter uses to put seed in the soil.

“That tells me if I have an issue in the field with compaction,” he explained.

“Historically we were using tillage to erase mistakes of farming and to get rid of compaction,” Frieders said.

“On our farm we are now 80% no-till — all of our soybeans are planted no-till and our corn is planted almost all no-till,” he said. “The only reason we do tillage is if we are applying fertilizer or a pH-balancing product to the field.”

Northern Illinois farmland features high-quality soils.

“We are blessed that we have some of the most productive soils in the world and we have just the right amount of sunshine, humidity and rain,” Frieders said.

“We have found by using less and less tillage on our fields we are creating a healthier soil profile because we have more microbial activity, more earthworms and we are improving the organic matter,” the farmer said.

“Every time you introduce oxygen into the soil through tillage, it chips away at the organic matter,” he said. “By reducing tillage, we are changing the trend line from organic matter going down, to it going up.”

Including cover crops in the crop rotation is part of the system.

“We have been planting cover crops for about four years and it is not a perfect system, but I am doing it because I believe in the long term it will be better for our farm,” Frieders said.

“Cover crops not only protect the water quality from our fields, they also hold nutrients in the soil and keep our soils from eroding in the winter,” he said.

“We have research going on in the Midwest that is looking at cover crop breeding to breed better cover corps for this climate and our cropping systems,” said Peterson, the agronomy director. “We are also looking at seeding methods and using drones to seed while the cash crop is growing.”

Making Connections

Patrick Boone traveled from Belgium to attend the Soy Connext Conference.

“I represent a feed company and we make feed at eight plants in Belgium, three in the Netherlands, two in Germany and one in France,” he said. “Altogether we are producing roughly 1.8 million tons of feed and I think we are the 11th or 12th largest feed company in Europe.”

The feed is made for a wide variety of animals including pigs, poultry, cattle, horses and small ruminants.

“Soybean meal is the main component in our feeds because it is by far the most balanced commodity and we need soybean meal for an efficient performing feed,” the Belgian explained. “Until now we were basically buying South America soybean meal because of historical and economical reasons.”

Boone said he attended the conference because he wanted to evaluate the possibilities of purchasing American soybean meal.

“We know quality-wise, American soybean meal is a good product with a good protein level,” he noted.

“I want to explore how the American farmer is dealing with sustainability, how he is treating his land and what actions he is taking to preserve the quality of it,” he said. “I am impressed by the efforts American farmers are doing because it is not only about profit, but it is also about conserving and the long-term vision.”

Sustainable Farming

The USSEC is involved with sustainability programs including the U.S. Soy Sustainability Assurance Protocol.

“That really encapsulates the sustainability of the U.S. soybean farmer and communicates the sustainability throughout the value chain,” said Tarik Eluri, sustainability manager for USSEC.

“We also work on programs for carbon footprint of U.S. soy,” Eluri said.

“U.S. soy is the lowest carbon footprint soybeans compared to soy coming from Brazil or Argentina,” he said. “We have the data and science to back that up and we also work other globally recognized protocols.”

“From the way Ryan is running his farm, you can see the dedication not only of him, but also his family,” Boone said. “You can see he is really proud of what he is doing and that it is not his job — it’s his life.”

Boone works with a team of about 15 people who are involved with the purchasing and logistics of the components to make feed at his European company.

“There is always an economic aspect, but you also have to take into consideration the way people are handling their business to make decisions for purchasing,” the businessman said. “The final responsibility for making purchases is with me.”

“It’s not only the price and the quality — it’s also the strategy and feeling behind it,” he said. “I am really impressed by what I have seen today and the professionalism of American farmers.”

Shaping The Future

The good thing about the farm tour, Frieders said, was the large number of visitors to his farm. However, that made it difficult to answer individual questions from the soy buyers.

“But I do think we made it clear how we get our beans to market and what we are doing on our farms to make sure we are growing the best quality product, the most efficiently as possible,” the farmer said.

“The amazing thing about this type of event is the people you meet from all around the world that are the decision-makers,” he said. “These decision-makers are the people that need to be here so they can base their decisions on actual data, instead of social media or wherever they might be getting their information from.”