WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) has announced a “Grow it Here, Make it Here” initiative to boost the biobased products industry, expand markets and create jobs in Ohio.

The initiative would partner Ohio’s manufacturing and agriculture industries and would be a boon to the state, Brown said.

He was joined in an announcement by Cathy Horton, founder of Nutek, a manufacturer of soy-based cleaning products and lubricants, and Allen Armstrong, a South Charleston farmer who sees biobased manufacturing as a new market and growth opportunity.

“Our Ohio farmers put food on tables, grow feed for livestock, develop new sources of energy for our cars and our homes,” Brown said.

“Increasingly, Ohio farmers grow feedstocks that are being turned into plastics and lubricants and chemicals. It is those American-made biobased products that are typically good for our environment, good for our economy, good for energy independence.”

The country’s dependence on foreign oils isn’t confined to the gas pump; it is also petroleum-based products people use at home, such as cleaning supplies, structural foams, fabrics, car parts and more, Brown said.

“Our state is home to approximately to 130 companies today that use agricultural crops to make new products ranging from natural pet foods to biobased paint, to soy ink to toner,” he said. “These companies obviously are creating jobs – they create new markets for our farmers, and our manufacturing.

“That is why I’m working on legislation to help our farmers and manufacturers do even more to meet our economic and environmental energy needs.”

The legislation Brown introduced would do three things:

•It strengthens the “Biopreferred Program” that certifies and labels products so consumers can better choose to purchase goods that are biobased, strengthening that market and helping families make wise choices.

•It lets biobased manufacturers obtain access to loan assistance that can help them expand their operations and hire new workers. The recovery is starting to pick up and part of the restraint on it is access to capital, Brown said.

•The initiative will help bridge the gap between development and commercialization. When something is developed in a laboratory, there is no “next step” to commercialize it and turn it into a product that could end up on someone’s shelf.

“In many ways this bill is about Ohio-grown crops making Ohio-made products, about agriculture in Ohio,” Brown said. “The beauty of it in many ways is of Ohio agriculture and Ohio manufacturing coming together.”

Horton founded Nutek Green and launched 14 retail and 44 industrial products in 18 months all using corn- and soy-based products all from Ohio.

“I decided when I founded this company and decided to create green cleaners and lubricants that it was going to be Ohio or nothing, because I was not going to make it here but not grow it here,” she said. “So 31 soybean farmers funded my company and they were all from Ohio, and I am very proud of that.”

She found it difficult to get funding for the company. The marketing support Brown suggests in his legislation, with proper branding of products and by creating a clear label for consumers, giving them the comfort of biobased content that has been certified and tested, is critical, she said.

“I have people that I go up against in the marketplace who call themselves biobased, and it is a joke,” Horton said. “(My products are) 100 percent biobased nontoxic. This importance of the labeling is phenomenally critical to those of us who have authentic voices in the biobased market.”

Armstrong said he thought Brown “hit on all the cylinders.

“As farmers we have invested farmer dollars heavily with our partners at Ohio State University, Ohio BioProducts Innovation Center and our research partners at Battelle to discover the processes by which we can use environmentally friendly, renewable resources, grown right here on our farms, to help this whole bioproducts economy that we’re trying to develop,” he said.

This means jobs in agriculture and in manufacturing – and the best part is everything is renewable and grown in Ohio, Armstrong said. “This is all about being environmentally friendly, doing the right things,” he added. “But it is also all about jobs right here in the state of Ohio, from my family farm here in South Charleston clear through all of the processes and the ripple effect of all the people that we do business with.”

Brown said he hopes the legislation he introduced will eventually be an amendment to the farm bill in process.