3. Soy
The United States gets the fame for being the first in the world’s soybean production in 2016. Furthermore, that same year soybeans yielded 61 percent of the world’s oilseed production.
This bountiful crop makes the ingredients list of vegetarian meat substitutes, of your handy protein shakes, of your non-dairy creamer. Its versatility as a food product and fuel make it a popular cash crop.
And unlike hemp and more like corn, farmers across the United States sowing seeds receive incentives to plant more and more of the soybean crop even despite its lower predicted profitability.
But hemp also works as a quality protein and completes a cup of coffee in the form of hemp milk. And look a little further north in Canada, and it’s clear that hemp will likely surpass soybean profits. There amongst the maple trees, hemp was grown and sold for $250 per acre in 2013 while 2014 data looked much lower for US soybeans.
Hemp could be the next prizefighter for American agricultural exports. At the very least, it would enable Americans looking to buy hemp products to buy products made and sourced locally. In 2016, the total retail value of hemp products in the U.S. was $688 million, and most of that hemp came from countries like Canada or China.
Despite its potential, hemp can’t compete with soybeans until it isn’t illegal to grow it because of its relation to the marijuana plant. Until then, this mighty contender will have to be imported.
