Fundamentally Speaking

Similar to what we did with corn in an earlier piece, this chart shows the state yields of the top 18 soybean producing states as a percentage of the U.S. yield looking at the five, ten and then 25-year averages on the left-hand axis.

Reported on the right-hand axis is the percent of each state's soybean harvested area over the past 25 years.

The figures in the yellow rectangles are each state's percentage of 2024 U.S. soybean harvested area.

There are certain states that have seen their yields improve relative to the national yields such as AR, IL (which has highest yields), KY, MS, NC, OH, TN and WI.

On the other hand, there are those state whose yields have fallen relative to the U.S. average such as KS, MN, and especially North Dakota.

Over the past 25 years, ND soybean yields averaged 26.6% below the U.S. yield but over the past 15 years averaged 29.3% below the national average.

Since 2020 however, North Dakota soybean yields have averaged 33.9% below the final U.S. yield.

This is noteworthy in the fact that that state's harvested acreage in 2000 was 1.85 million acres, but last year's figure was 6.55 million, a 254% jump over the past 25 years.

This is by far the largest percent increase in harvested area of any of the 18 top soybean producing states as ND in 2024 accounted for 7.6% of total U.S. harvested soybean acreage.

Kansas, another state that has seen its soybean yields falter relative to the U.S. average, has also seen its soybean harvested area increase quite dramatically since 2000, up 76.8%.

The fact that more production coming from states that both have seen their harvested area increase and yields decline compared to the U.S. is perhaps one of the reasons why U.S. has not set a record soybean yield since 2016, one of the longest stretches in history.

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