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Tensions run high between ASA, USB
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The largest used equipment inventory in the Mid-Atlantic is only a click away. Visit our website by clicking here or visit us at one of our 11 locations throughout MD, DE, VA and PA.
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Tensions run high between ASA, USB
2.12.2008
By BRUCE HOTCHKISS
Senior Editor
A simmering dispute between the American Soybean Association and the United Soybean Board has bubbled over.
The dispute, which threatens to widen a troubling schism in the nation’s soybean industry, is expected to attract major attention at the upcoming Commodity Classic in Nashville.
Here’s the background.
After nearly a year of study, input and refinement, an organization created to explore options on how best to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the national soybean organizations is recommending significant change in the way that the two national soybean organizations are structured, how they operate and how they work together.
The Soybean Opportunities Task Force (SOTF), created in March of last year, proposes a new industry alignment it says is designed “to ensure collaboration, coordination and communications between the United Soybean Board (USB) and the American Soybean Association (ASA).”
SOTF is comprised of farmers from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, North Carolina and Virginia. It was formed, it says, “to gauge the success of the two national organizations related to the administration of soybean programs and to make recommendations for improvement.”
The movement to essentially realign the two organizations was given birth in what are known in the industry as “the I states” — Illinois, Indiana and Iowa. Kansas and the two eastern states, Virginia and North Carolina, subsequently signed on.
The Virginia Soybean Board and the Virginia Soybean Association have endorsed the effort. The state’s soybean board, which administers the national soybean checkoff program in the commonwealth, did so in December with this resolution:
“The Virginia Soybean Board (VSB) supports the goal of improving cooperation, collaboration and communication of the organizations serving the soybean industry. The VSB appreciates the work of the state-driven Soybean Opportunities Task Force (SOFT) to identify critical issues and a pathway to improvement. The VSB shares their commitment to charting such a pathway. The VSB therefore recommends that the American Soybean Association create a task force to complete work on details related to forming an aligned organization as outlined by SOFT.”
Opposition to the effort — and it may be substantially based on the number of states that have not signed on for SOTF — allege that the proposed realignment of the relationship between ASA and the USB is nothing more than “a power grab” by the industry-powerful “I” states.
That relationship has been strained since the USB, which controls the purse strings of the industry, in effect took control of international marketing from ASA, creating the U.S. Soybean Export Council (USSEC) through which both ASA and USB share the administration of international marketing.
There has also been an effort within the USB to give delegates from smaller states — that is, states with less soybean production — an opportunity for leadership.
The muscle of SOTF will be tested at the Commodity Classic slated for Feb. 28 to March 1 in Tennessee’s “Music City.” This resolution will be brought before the delegate body at the annual ASA meeting:
“We support the goal of improving cooperation, collaboration and communication of the organizations serving the soybean industry.
“We appreciate the work of state-driven SOTF to identify critical issues and a pathway to improvement. We share their commitment to charting such a pathway.
“We therefore recommend that ASA create a task force to complete work on details related to forming an aligned organization as outlined by SOTF.”
At the core of SOTF’s effort is the concept of creating what it calls “the new ASA.” In a three-page question and answer document, SOTF explains that this would be the result of restructuring the current ASA through “a board of governance composed of representatives of state soybean boards, state associations, the USB, industry stakeholders including exporters/grain handlers, processors and technology providers as well as ex-officio representatives of various entities” thus “bringing all parties to the table.”
SOTF appears to be optimistic as to its reception in Nashville. In a release dated Jan. 29, it said that its recommendations are “gaining momentum.”
“We believe ASA is open to ideas that will bring positive change to the industry, including enhancing and improving the three Cs — cooperation, collaboration and communication between that organization and USB,” said Mark Seib, a soybean farmer from Poseyville, Ind., who is serving as SOTF co-chairman.
“ASA has conscientiously served its soybean producer members for 85 years and we look forward to working with its leaders on several changes we believe are necessary for the growth of the industry,” Seib said.