Genetic Enhancement of Soybean Oil for Industrial Uses: Prospects and Challenges

More than 600 million pounds of the soybean oil produced annually in the United States are used for nonedible applications, including the production of industrial materials (American Soybean Association, 2001). More than half of this use of soybean oil falls in the category of fatty acids, soaps, and feed. The remainder of the nonedible soybean market is used for the manufacture of inks, paints, varnishes, resins, plastics, and biodiesel. Although the use of soybean oil for industrial purposes is economically significant, it represents only 4% of the total consumption of US soybean oil. By contrast, more than 13 billion pounds of US soybean oil are used annually in foods and food processing. (For more information, see SoyStats 2001 at http://www.unitedsoybean.org /soystats2001.)