Actually They Come From China

The Columbus Dispatch ^ | February 29, 2008 | By Monique Curet

[JACKRUSSELL]

(Please FReepmail me if you would like to be on or off of the list.)

[coloradan]

If it’s grown here, how could it possibly be cheaper to bring in Chinese stuff from halfway across the globe? What do we do with ours?

[Farmer Dean]

Sounds like another health food fad.Just give me a nice locally grown steak.

[cripplecreek]

Ohio farmers do grow some soybeans to be eaten instead of processed for other uses, but the majority are exported and used to make products such as tofu.

Can't say as if I have a big problem with tofu being shipped away as far as possible. On the other hand the soy beans can be used in a lot of different ways right here.

[the invisib1e hand]

If it’s grown here, how could it possibly be cheaper to bring in Chinese stuff from halfway across the globe? What do we do with ours?

Those are among the first questions that one ought to ask. Fortunately, they are also among the first addressed in the article, and right here on this thread.

I'm a notorious title-reader and article-skimmer, and even I saw it.

[rdl6989]

Sounds like another health food fad. Just give me a nice locally grown steak.

Agreed!

[sheana]

I live in the Central Valley of California, nothing but agriculture, yet when I go to the grocery store all our fruits & veggies are from MExico. Does seem a little insane doesn’t it?

[muawiyah]

Just a shortfall in the article writer's knowledge. Soybeans are used in the United States for commercial products and materials, as well as tofu, as well as TVP, as well as paint, as well as Hamburger Helper (type products), etc.

We eat them. We paint with them. We make beachballs and underwear out of them.

What we don't do is harvest immature soybeans.

[cripplecreek]

I never paid soybeans much attention but know they’re very usefull. When I was a kid working on the farm I know they were planted for the soil rather than for the cows.

[Kozak]

The problem for local diners with a taste for the bean, experts say, is that soybean farmers are not equipped to grow and harvest edamame, which are immature beans. And vegetable farmers have not yet responded to demand for the product by growing more.

[UCFRoadWarrior]

If it’s grown here, how could it possibly be cheaper to bring in Chinese stuff from halfway across the globe? What do we do with ours?

---

I am sure one of the “free traders” here can concoct some type of wild excuse why the US is not using its own soybeans.

No...its not cheaper to bring in soybeans (or any other ag product) from Commie China, esp when the US can grow it themselves.

Amazing what free trade has done....it has turned an ag exporter nation like US into a ag importer. Nuts

[Red_Devil 232]

It is the same with garlic. California used to be a big grower but they can’t compete with the cheap stuff coming from china. Fresh or powdered it probably comes from China.

[RedMonqey]

If it'?s grown here, how could it possibly be cheaper to bring in Chinese stuff from halfway across the globe? What do we do with ours?

Just guessing but sounds like the soybeans people eat are young and tender and probably picked by hand. Way different from having giant combines that pick and shell thew dried mature bean that goes into animal feed and food processors.

[geopyg]

“What we don’t do is harvest immature soybeans.”

As well we shouldn’t!!! Now if we could just go after the veal producers!

[Freedom2specul8]

I have family that grows soybeans, I didn’t know we weren’t reaping the benefits tofu wise.

[Freedom2specul8]

I had no idea..Thanks for the info

[redhead]

" What do we do with ours?"

Let them mature and dry, then harvest them for oil, plasttics, milk, protein supplements, animal and poultry foods, etc. A very versatile crop.

[muawiyah]

Just to make sure you heard the answer ~ the soybeans in question are picked when immature. This takes labor.

American soybeans are pretty much a mechanized crop. We wait until they're ripe, then harvest the entire plant, peas and all, to turn them into STUFF!

If you want fresh, young soybeans in the United States you must grow them in your own garden.

My father always put out a row of soybeans in his garden every year so that he had fresh soybeans all the time. That's because they weren't available otherwise. That's why entrepreneurs ship them in from China.

[Vigilanteman]

You are correct. Edamame need to be harvested at just the right time and are labor intesive to check, harvest and store.

Commercial soybeans have industrial uses well beyond the few you have mentioned and can be machine harvested after maturity.