There's a battle brewing in soybeans: between the American Soybean Association (ASA) and the United Soybean Board (USB). It sounds a bit like kindergarten squabbling, but for investors, it has a real potential impact.

The ASA is a lobbying group for soybean farmers. In other words, it's the de facto government all those farmers would have elected if there were a United States of Edamame. Think a National Rifle Association, but with John Deere bumper stickers.

The USB, unlike the ASA, is a group of farmers who sit on a board, whose job is to spend the "soybean checkoff."

What exactly is the soybean checkoff? It's a pool of money from a tax - a mandatory assessment of one half of 1 percent of the market price per bushel of soybeans sold by U.S. soybean farmers. This is not an insignificant percentage in a business where margins are razor thin. Of this money, half goes to the state the crop was grown in, and half goes to the USB.

The money for the USB is supposed to be used to drive demand: to promote soybean exports, marketing, use and research. That's how we think of it. The USB puts it this way: "Checkoff funds are invested in the areas of animal utilization, human utilization, industrial utilization, industry relations, market access and supply."

The USDA says it a little more plainly, stating that the 1990 Farm Bill "authorized the establishment of a national soybean promotion, research and consumer information program."

The funds are collected at the first point of sale - usually right when the farmer sells his crop at the local grain elevator. Considering how the soybean industry has been growing, and how prices have risen (especially prior to this summer), there has been quite a bit of money collected since 1991.

Source: SoybeanCheckoff.com

While the numbers for 2008 and 2009 are only estimates, there is no disputing the fact that the assessments have gone from a little something to buy some billboard ads to a big pile of money. Of course, the fat times are over for now.

In 2007, the average price farmers received for soybeans was $10.40/bushel. While it is hard to say what prices the 2008 and 2009 estimates are based on, we're guessing higher. With soybeans closing at $8.33/bushel on Friday, that big pile of money is looking like a bubble. And bubbles make enemies.

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