Moving the soybean pile. That’s the ultimate goal of all soybean checkoff-funded initiatives we have administered at the Illinois Soybean Association (ISA). And that pile keeps getting bigger because Illinois soybean farmers keep getting better at what they do. It’s our job at ISA to make sure we’re not just maintaining supply chains but creating new ones – and new uses for the crop – in markets at home and around the world.

That’s exactly what we’re doing with the new International Commercialization Initiative (ICI). It’s part of the ISA Soy Innovation Center that was itself launched in 2024 with a goal of taking soybean innovations from the laboratory, scaling them up and making them commercially viable. It’s a sometimes time- and labor-intensive effort that’s laser-focused on building soybean demand and, ultimately, stronger prices for Illinois soybean farmers.

Collaborating to Solve a Problem
The ICI solves a previous problem: Though there’s been a lot of research and commercialization activity over the years, those efforts have been disconnected, with little collaboration between the great organizations leading the work. The new initiative aims to gather stakeholders such as ISA and other state soybean associations as well as the U.S. Soybean Export Council (USSEC) and United Soybean Board (USB) to work together and elevate efforts to expand existing uses and develop new food and industrial uses for soybeans. ICI’s goal is to connect those uses with markets around the world where they’ll be most effective in driving new demand for Illinois soybeans.

In other words, the ICI — with leadership from Paul Burke, Commodity & Cooperator Services, Inc. Senior Partner and the former Executive Director of USSEC’s Soy Excellence Centers — will advance those efforts. The initiative started earlier this fall is a year-round effort, and we’ll bring everyone together six times per year to connect all the stars in this increasingly complex constellation.

“A lot of great work has been done, and we’ve seen a number of soybean industry players investing in this area,” Burke says. “But we’ve noticed over time that there hasn’t really been a coordinated effort to share information and organize how we go about doing this in a more unified fashion. That’s what the ICI is all about. Its primary objective is collaboration and leaning into the resources that many different international trade organizations offer to bring more attention and resources to promoting the soybean technology and products available.”

Applying New Thinking to Unite Individual Efforts
With ICI, we’re creating new, meaningful industry synergy. We’ll continue meeting with partners around the world to connect the innovators who deliver those products with our network of trading partners around the world. It’s a new way we are applying collaborative and new thinking that, when put into action, will stimulate new demand for Illinois soybeans around the world to the farmer’s benefit.

High on the ICI wishlist as our work begins is quality time and capacity to connect with trading partners at the highest levels. We’re working with companies — startups all the way to the largest corporations — to research and develop new, in-demand uses for soybeans, then get those products in front of high-level decision-makers so we’re effectively solving problems for everyone in the supply chain from the field to the consumer rather than creating solutions looking for problems.

“Collaboration plays a role in success, and it can be difficult when individual players have different interests. It requires a lot of communication and can be a slow process, but it’s critical if we want to tap into all of the global resources we can access but are not currently using,” Burke says. “It takes key relationships around the world with the right decision-makers, technology and companies who are commercializing new products with soybeans. We are doing a lot of work to determine the technology and products that are most shelf-ready and commercially viable for priority markets that will add soybean demand in the long run.”

The ICI’s Next Steps
Over the next year or so, we are going to be getting our ducks in a row and creating a strategy by which we can approach this new collaborative effort at a very high level of seriousness. It won’t be another highly structured, regulated entity as much as it will be an ongoing “meeting of the minds” of some of the best in the business at creating new market opportunities for the soybeans you grow. Like Burke says, we won’t be launching a ton of new products in ICI’s first year, but
we’ll lay the groundwork for that effort — supercharged by collaboration — down the road.

Developing and implementing the ICI is much like planting a soybean crop in the spring: We know what we want to happen, what we’ll do to make it happen and when we will ultimately reap the rewards of a successful growing season. We just know it won’t happen tomorrow. But in the end, Illinois soybean farmers will be the ultimate benefactors of the ICI.