Until recently, vegetable seed oils — such as those gleaned from soybeans — generated little controversy.
Enter Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., along with social media food influencers. They’ve flipped the page on these products, labeling them as a threat to human health. Talk of a ban on vegetable seed oils spurred the World Agricultural Economic and Environmental Services (WAEES) to compile a March report on the consequences of a seed oil ban. The study was supported by the United Soybean Board.
“We know that the farm economy's already in a bad place, so there are a lot of concerns about this,” says Alexa Combelic, American Soybean Association executive director of government affairs. She addressed members of the North American Agricultural Journalists at their late April meeting in Washington, D.C., on the matter.
WAEES analysis
All this is bigger than just soybeans. A seed oil ban also would impact oil from other crops that farmers grow, including canola, sunflowers, cotton and corn. The WAEES analysis includes two scenarios resulting from a ban of U.S. seed oil food use on agricultural, biofuel and consumer markets.
The first scenario attempts to hold U.S. vegetable oil consumption flat overall by increasing olive, peanut and palm oil consumption to compensate for the loss of soybean oil, canola oil, sunflower oil, cottonseed oil and corn oil.
The second scenario allows U.S. per-capita vegetable oil to fall under the assumption that palm oil is not fully substitutable with all seed oils. In the second scenario, vegetable oil consumption falls an average of 21.1 pounds per capita per year over the 2025-2026 to 2035-2036 period. However, consumers would spend an average of 8% more per capita on vegetable oil per year due to higher prices. Since the U.S. doesn’t produce significant quantities of olive and palm oil, it would rely more on vegetable oil imports.
Price impact
All this hits soybean farmers in the pocketbook. Under the WAEES flat vegetable oil consumption scenario, U.S. soybean prices would fall an average of 3.4% over the 2025-2026 to 2035-2036 period. Meanwhile, farmer returns over variable costs would decrease an average of 6.7% over the same time frame. Lower prices would result in a 3 million-acre decline in soybean-planted area by 2035-2036 and a 170 million-bushel decline in production.
Livestock farmers also would be hit, as the WAESS report finds the seed oil ban scenario would lead to:
- higher feed costs
- lower meat production
- higher meat prices
Lower soybean-processing margins and lower soybean production would lead to a lower soybean crush, lower soybean meal production and higher soybean meal prices, according to the report.
Poultry and pork producers use a higher proportion of soybean meal in their feed rations, so higher soybean meal prices have a larger impact on their feed costs and returns compared with other livestock producers, the report found. As production margins fall, livestock producers curb production, thereby reducing meat supplies available to consumers, according to the report.
“With either scenario, you’re going to see about a 30% increase in the consumer price index for fats and oils,” Combelic says. “This leads to another question about the cost of food, which is another big concern of this [Trump] administration.”
What to do?
Kennedy and health influencers have made claims that seed oils are unhealthy.
“I’m not sure exactly where some of these claims come from, but a lot of it has been perpetuated through social media, through health influencers,” Combelic says.
The good news is science shows soybean oil is a healthy and safe food product, which is especially true in the case of high-oleic soybean oil. It contains beneficial monounsaturated fatty acids and less saturated fat that provides a healthy alternative to many cooking oils, according to the United Soybean Board.
Conveying this message in a new media environment that relies on social media influencers presents a challenge. Combelic says farmers and farm groups need to make sure the federal government understands the science behind vegetable seed oils and the benefits they bring to consumers. “We also need to do a better job sharing our message to the public,” Combelic says.