6-26-25

The one billion plus dollars American farmers are putting into the commodity programs each year is benefiting everyone in the world. We all think about human food, animal feed, bio diesel and ethanol gasoline but what about all the other products coming from checkoff farmer dollars.

I was listening to National Public Radio and they were talking about soy foam being used to fight fires and how much safer and less damaging to the environment soy foam was than petroleum foam. The big one right now is biodegradable plastics. We have all seen petroleum plastics all along our road sides, on our beaches and in landfills. Now with commodity checkoff funded research more biodegradable plastic are used where plastic will deteriorate in a short time if even not properly disposed of.

It is not just new products that the checkoff is creating it has helped. The Pork checkoff has helped build exports, only a few years ago very little pork was exported from the US. Now around 25% to 27% of pork produced in the US is exported. This is a very good deal for the US, but rural America sees the biggest benefit. The raising of the pigs, making of feed, processing the pigs all give lots of jobs to rural America greatly helping raise living standards of those residents. The “Most Expport Federation” funded primarily by commodity programs has increased the meat exports over the years. This helps our balance of trade and overall economy.

Go to Your Food My Adventure to read other thoughts I have posted about my 86 years of life on the farm and 63 crop years as well as being involved in ag related activities.