U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack recently urged federal agencies to purchase biobased products under the federal BioPreferred program.  In letters to all 14 Cabinet Secretaries and six other high-ranking government officials (pdf), Vilsack reminded agencies that under the 2008 Farm Bill federal agencies are required to give procurement preference to designated items composed of biobased products.

Several agencies have responded and have outlined how they are implementing the BioPreferred program into their procurement policies.  They include:

• Department of Defense
• Department of Education
• Department of Energy
• Department of the Interior
• Treasury Department

Purchases of biobased products are also cited as a way for government agencies to comply with President Obama’s Executive Order 13514 Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy and Economic Performance.

The use of biobased products positively impact climate change, energy/environmental security and economic development by:

• Helping to reduce the introduction of new fossil carbon into the atmosphere
• Replacing petroleum products, helping to increase U.S. energy and environmental security and independence
• Creating jobs by increasing demand for agricultural materials and by increasing new product development, manufacturing, and sales.

There are a wide variety of biobased products that are commercially available now, including lubricants, carpet backing, solvents, spray foam insulation, cleaners, and much more.  To help you find biobased products, the United Soybean Board has built an online library of information on this web site for government users on soy biobased products.