CHICAGO — Inside a factory on Chicago’s North Side, the smell of simmering soybeans drifts through the air. On a typical day, “I use about 4,000 pounds of dry beans,” Jenny Yang said. She and her team grind, cook and press thousands of pounds of soybeans into silky tofu and rich soy milk — the taste of home for Yang and for many who grew up with tofu on the table.

“She still makes it the same way — no preservatives, made mostly by hand,” said Bob Lum, a longtime friend of Yang who helps with the business. Her company, Phoenix Bean, has been making tofu and soy milk this way since she bought it in 2006. It is one of the few businesses in the state that uses Illinois food-grade, non-GMO, or non-genetically modified organism, soybeans, sourced directly from local farms like Janie’s Mill in Ashkum.

“I know them since back in the day, like at least 10, 15 years,” Yang said. “This is a good, very good partnership.”

Illinois grows more soybeans than any other state, harvesting more than 639 million bushels in 2025, well ahead of Iowa’s 595 million bushels and Minnesota’s 371 million bushels. Lawmakers designated the soybean as the official State Bean in 2025, effective Jan. 1, 2026, with Sen. Doris Turner, D-Springfield, who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, calling Decatur the “soybean capital of the world.”

But almost none of those millions of bushels end up as food on Illinois plates. According to the Illinois Soybean Association, 60% of soybeans grown in the state are exported; most of the remaining 40% are processed as animal feed, leaving the state reliant on imports for its soy food.

“Ninety-five percent of food consumed in the state of Illinois is imported,” said Rep. Sonya Harper, D-Chicago, chair of the House Agriculture and Conservation Committee, speaking of Illinois food crops. “If there were any type of natural disaster, Illinois only has enough food that will last us for three days.”

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In 2025, with a trade war freezing exports to China — one of the biggest buyers of Illinois soybeans — Gov. JB Pritzker declared an “Agricultural Export Crisis” on Oct. 29 and directed state agencies to enhance domestic markets. For farmers and food producers, the pressure has made the need for local infrastructure more urgent than ever, raising the question of whether more of Illinois’ own crops, especially soybeans, can finally start feeding more Illinoisans.

Harper said more effort and massive investment are needed. She sponsored the Local Food Infrastructure Grant program, which provides local farmers with small grants for processing, storage and distribution. She worked closely with the Illinois Stewardship Alliance, a policy advocate for local food and farm communities, to build legislative momentum.

“We have some of the best soil, the best farmland,” Harper said. “No matter where you are, urban, suburban and rural — we need to be producing more food in the state.”

She described local food production as a win-win that will help create jobs and generate revenue.

Her downstate colleague, Rep. Charlie Meier, R-Okawville, a farmer himself who raises about 1,000 acres of soybeans every year, noted that farmers follow price signals.

“We are very conservative, and we do everything the same,” Meier said. “But at the same time, we must be able to change everything in a drop of a second, and we will go wherever the markets are.”

For Illinois farmers, the math is brutal. Food-grade soybeans require older genetics that yield 10 to 15 fewer bushels per acre. Jeff O’Connor, a northern Illinois farmer who has grown food-grade soybeans, said his commodity soybeans averaged in the low 70s bushels per acre last year. His food-grade soybeans, which use varieties more than a decade old, yielded in the low 60s.

Weed control is another issue. Unlike commodity soy, which allows for certain herbicides, food-grade soybeans are non-GMOs, so farmers can’t use any of those chemicals. Furthermore, fields often look unkept.

“You can’t do that again,” one landowner told O’Connor after a season of raising food-grade soybeans. “I don’t care if we made a little more money. They looked terrible.”

O’Connor, who has grown food-grade beans for large buyers like Danone, is planting none this year. In 2025, the premium for non-GMO, food-grade soybeans averaged $2.53 per bushel on top of the $10.50 commodity soybeans price, bringing the total to approximately $13.03 per bushel.

But that extra money, he said, no longer offsets the lower yield, the extra labor, the equipment cleaning, storage segregation and the weed pressure. For many Illinois farmers, switching from commodity soybeans to food-grade soybeans remains a hard sell.

The math is reflected across Illinois. Todd Main, the director of market development for the Illinois Soybean Association, confirmed this tension. While food-grade soybeans are a fast-growing sector, “it’s a relatively small portion of the overall market. Is it fast-growing? Yes,” he said. “But in volume, not so much.”

Main pointed to longer-term shifts in global demand. Despite the ongoing crisis with China’s market shrinking, he noted that the association has been exploring new markets in Africa, Southeast Asia and India for soybean exports. But those new trade relationships can take years to build. Under the trade truce announced at the Busan Summit in late 2025, China pledged to purchase 12 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans by year’s-end, with annual targets of 25 million metric tons through 2028.

Now, with the truce remaining in effect, no formal long-term purchase agreement has been signed. Returning from a summit to Beijing earlier this month, President Donald Trump said, “The farmers are going to be very happy. They’re (China) going to be buying billions of dollars of soybeans.”

The White House said China had agreed to buy at least $17 billion of U.S. agricultural products annually through 2028, on top of those soybean commitments. Beijing has not publicly confirmed the figure.

The lack of a stable export outlook has highlighted the need for better local infrastructure. Main pointed to a specific priority: bridges. An efficient network of roads, rails and waterways has long been the competitive advantage for U.S. soy in global markets. About 30% of county bridges in Illinois are load-restricted or in poor condition, Main said. “Every dollar we invest in those bridges, we get more than almost $5 back.”

That economic return comes from shorter travel times, less wear on vehicles and lower fuel costs. Gov. JB Pritzker announced a $50.6 billion, six-year infrastructure plan on Oct. 1, 2025 — the largest in state history — which includes $32.5 billion for state roads and bridges. Without those repairs, farmers face significant drawbacks in getting their beans to market.

The gap in Illinois is widening. Demand for soy milk and tofu is growing: Phoenix Bean is currently expanding its USDA-certified organic soybean products from Whole Foods shelves in the Midwest and Northeast to Sprouts shelves in California, distributing nationwide.

“It’s very difficult to find an organic farmer,” Yang said.

Yet O’Connor and other Illinois farmers are turning away from growing food-grade soybeans.

“When we’re planting a crop here, we’re trying to decide which crop we’re going to lose the least money on,” said Meier.

For him, farming is more than a business. “The farm is a member of the family. It’s been here for generations.”

He emphasized that farming practices have improved dramatically, but the economic pressure remains. Until food-grade prices rise significantly, most farmers will stick with commodity soybeans.

For Harper, the Local Food Infrastructure Grant is a long-term investment, not a quick fix. The program’s $3.6 million is a fraction of what is needed.

“Food prices are rising across Illinois and investing in local food infrastructure is essential,” she said. “But we are still far away from actual investment and implementation.”

Temporary relief for Illinois soybean farmers is scarce. The gap between what Illinois grows and what Illinois eats remains wide. Shifting Illinois soybean production toward the domestic food market seems difficult in the short term.

The question lingers: Can Illinois feed itself its own soybeans?

“You have to start somewhere,” Harper said.

Tara Sun is a graduate student in journalism with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications, and is a fellow in its Medill Illinois News Bureau working in partnership with Capitol News Illinois.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.