Commotion in the Bean Pit

In the middle of the octagonal bean pit in Chicago's Board of Trade, hundreds of beige-jacketed traders snouted and jabbed out hand signals to make their trades. Amid the pandemonium, messengers dashed about picking up written confirmations. In the offices of the commission houses, clerks clocked up overtime hours; at one firm they slept only three hours in three days.

The cause of all this excitement was the simple soybean, the hottest item in the seething U.S. commodities market. Last week futures for soybeans, soybean oil and soybean meal set seasonal records after a month of wild trading. A cool speculator who decided to hold on to his contracts for the month could have tripled his money. In trading last week price changes twice reached the permissible daily limit of 10-c- per bu., and to take the heat out of the market the Board of Trade has doubled in stages the margin required of a trader to $2,000 per 5,000 bu. contract.

All Gold. Introduced to the U.S. from Asia in 1804, the soybean did not become a significant agricultural product until World War II cut off normal U.S. imports of fats and oil. From a crop of 193 million bu. in 1945, output rose to 843.7 million bu., worth nearly $2.5 billion last fall. Soybeans are the U.S.'s most valuable agricultural export, ranking ahead of wheat and corn.

The soybean is a pea-sized seed, usually yellow in color but gold in the eyes of the farmer. It wouldn't make much of a pet, but it has about all the other qualities of Al Capp's famous Shmoo. It is crushed into edible oils for cooking and salads and into livestock feed. It goes into antiknock gasoline, linoleum, chocolate candy bars, and helps make fire extinguishers foam.

Worthington Foods Inc. takes edible soybean fiber produced by Ralston Purina, turns it into meatless frankfurters, roast beef and fried chicken, sells them to Seventh-day Adventists and vegetarians. Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. is testing a soy beverage to be sold in powder form, and Central Soya has developed an ice cream-like frozen dessert made of soybeans.

High Protein. What interests researchers the most about the soybean is its high protein content (up to 50%), and this month Central Soya will begin mass production of Promine, an isolated soybean protein, at a new Chicago plant. Promine binds and emulsifies pulverized meats, such as sausages, meat loaf and bologna.

With these new products coming out, with more cattle and hogs to feed on soy meal, with rising estimates for 1966-67 soybean demand and with late crops in sight, it looks as if the excitement in the bean pit is far from over.

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