The United Soybean Board (USB) held its winter meetings in St. Louis last week, electing Jared Hagert of Emerado, North Dakota to lead the national soy checkoff in 2017. Mr. Hagert will be the first chair to implement the board’s new Long-Range Strategic Plan, which emphasizes soybean innovation for farmer profit opportunities, including continued high oleic development, soybean-meal-quality improvements and technological advances to maximize on-farm profitability.
“The best use of checkoff funds is to invest in programs that provide value back to all U.S. soybean farmers,” Mr. Hagert stated. “To maximize profit opportunities for our farmers, we need to look beyond the bushel and focus on our end users. Meeting their needs will help to drive demand for our crop now and in the future.”
The following farmer-leaders will be joining Mr. Hagert on the executive committee to oversee USB’s profit-building projects:

Members of the Strategic Management Committee (SMC) will ensure that program goals align with the checkoff’s strategic objectives. Farmer-leaders who will serve on the SMC include:

In addition to electing a new slate of officers, 17 checkoff farmer-leaders were sworn in. Five of these directors are new to the board, with 12 returning.
USSEC congratulates the new USB officers and looks forward to continuing its work with USB to support the mission of the U.S. Soy family.