Lebanon County Farmer Appointed Vice Chair of Pa. Soybean Board
HARRISBURG, PA (January 9, 2012) – Lebanon County soybean producer Brian Kreider was appointed as vice chair of the Pa. Soybean Board at the Board’s December 2011 meeting. He replaces Northumberland County soybean producer Paul Kieffer, who retired from service to the Board.
Kreider, a 1997 graduate of Penn State University, operates a family-owned farm in Lebanon, Pa. He is one of three Pennsylvania farmers featured in the Farmers Feed Us promotion, which debuted online in January. By registering on the Farmers Feed Us website at www.farmersfeedus.org, consumers are eligible to win a year’s worth of free groceries. They are invited to explore the website as they tour farms, meet farm families, and see for themselves how farmers in the Mid-Atlantic region grow the food that ends up on their family’s table.
In other business, the Board approved development of a new website for the Pa. Soybean Board, which will have a wealth of information for the state’s soybean producers as well as others interested in soy products such as biodiesel, soy foods and soy-based industrial products.
The Pa. Soybean Board is a farmer-controlled Board responsible for managing Pennsylvania’s share of funds received from the nationwide Soybean Checkoff program. There are currently nine members on the Board.
Checkoff funds are used for implementing a program of promotion, research, consumer information, and industry information designed to strengthen the soybean industry’s position in the marketplace, to maintain and expand existing domestic and foreign markets and uses for soybeans and soybean products, and to develop new markets and uses for soybeans and soybean products.
The funding is available under an assessment program, approved by Congress in 1990, under which soybean farmers contribute 50 cents of every $100 they receive for their beans at the first point of sale. Funds are used to develop markets, educate consumers, and research new ways to utilize and produce soybeans more efficiently.
For more information, visit pasoybean.org.