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Brown Promotes Bill to Boost Bio-Products Industry
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Ohio farmers who grow crops to put food on Americans’ dinner tables are increasingly producing feedstocks that are being turned into plastics, lubricants and chemicals, and U.S, Sen. Sherrod Brown says legislation he recently introduced aims to support that growing bio-based products industry.
The idea is to marry agriculture, Ohio’s No. 1 industry, with manufacturing, another key sector in the state economy. Ohio already is home to some 130 companies that manufacture bio-based products, Brown told reporters Wednesday as he outlined his proposed “Grow It here, Make It Here” initiative.
“It’s those American-made bio-based products that are typically good for our environment, good for our economy and good for energy independence,” said Brown, D-Ohio. Such products help to create jobs, are environmentally friendly and reduce dependence on foreign sources of oil that would otherwise be used in the manufacture of these products, he added.
The legislation, Brown said, would strengthen a program that certifies and labels products so consumers can better choose ones that are bio-based; improve access to loans for manufacturers of bio-based products; and strengthen programs within the U.S. Department of Agriculture to bridge the gap between development and commercialization of bio-based products.
Ohio companies in the bio-based products industry, according to a county-by-county chart issued by Brown’s office, include Natural Solutions in Salem, The First Lady Boutique in Girard and Litco International Inc. in Vienna Township.
Joining Brown on the conference call was Cathy Horton, who such assistance would have been a big help when she founded Nutek Green, a Chagrin Falls manufacturer of soy-based cleaning products and lubricants. “The three parts of your legislation are exactly where we hurt right now in getting to market,” Horton told Brown.
Horton stressed that every stage of her company’s production process takes place in Ohio, from the growing of the soy and corn used to the manufacture of aluminum cans for the finished product, which are extruded at Exal Corp.’s plant in Youngstown.
“ ‘Grow it here, make it here’ is what we are about,” she remarked. She decided when she founded the company that “it was going to be Ohio or nothing,” she said.
Farmers have already heavily invested their own dollars with partners such as Ohio State University, Ohio Byproducts Innovation Center and Battelle “to discover the processes in which we can use environmentally friendly renewable resources grown on our farms” to help the developing bio-energy/bio-products industry, said Allen Armstrong, a South Charleston farmer who sees bio-based manufacturing as a new market and growth opportunity.
“Ohio’s well positioned with being a leader in the polymer industry,” Armstrong said.
“Make no mistake – it’s all about being environmentally friendly, it’s all about doing the right thing but it’s also about jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs right here in the state of Ohio,” he added.
Copyright 2012 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.