Hey- you might have some soybeans in your tires there. I don’t mean that you might have accidentally driven over some and got them stuck in the tread. I mean you might literally have soybeans in your tires- it’s the soybean checkoff at work! Indiana Soybean Alliance board member Mark Legan explains one of the projects their partnership with the United Soybean Board has helped bring to fruition.
“Goodyear Tires has come out with a tire that basically replaces 60% of the petroleum oil with soybean oil. And there are some attributes that make it a better tire. The Indiana Soybean Alliance board thought it was important to try and help promote this. One of the things we looked at doing was offer up to four different first responders across the state.”
And so, Legan nominated the Putnam County Sheriff Department. Sheriff Jerrod Baugh tells Hoosier Ag Today they had to do some research, and after doing that research, they were certainly intrigued by these soy tires.
“Being in a cold weather state, a cold weather county, you start to read into it about the traction being better, more pliable in colder weather. And I’m like, well, now, this is starting to make a little bit of sense. They surely aren’t high performance tires like we require on police package of pursuit rated vehicles. And they’re like, ‘They sure are!’”
Baugh says this is a win-win for the department and for community relations in their rural Indiana community.
“We live in a rural area. We’ve got a beautiful carpet of soybeans right now. You know, in Putnam County, I didn’t think they were going to make it past the cover crop for a while, and then the good Lord put some rain on it. We’ve got tire material!”
Legan says this just goes to show how incredible and versatile soybeans truly are.
“Virtually anything that we manufacture using petroleum-based oil, we can make out of soybean oil too. And, oh, by the way, it’s a sustainable product.”
To be eligible to receive the donation, a farmer needed to nominate a public institution or a charity. The other recipients of free Goodyear tires include: Cultivate Food Rescue in St. Joseph County, nominated by Joe Stoller of Bremen, Ind.; Noble Transit Service in Noble County, nominated by Tom Griffiths of Kendallville, Ind.; and Hamilton Fire Department in Jackson County, nominated by Kevin Burbrink of Seymour, Ind.
Goodyear exceeded its goal of a 25 percent increase in soybean oil consumption by 2020, and it is making noteworthy progress on its target of fully replacing all its petroleum-driven oils with soybean oil by 2040.
