Honda is well known for its cars, but might soon be known as number one in non-GMO soybean exports. (Photo by Simon Cataudo)
Most people associate Honda with cars and motorcycles. But the company has an interesting sideline: as a cost-saving measure, they’ve been exporting soybeans from the U.S. to Japan. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Nora Flaherty has more:
Transcript
Most people associate Honda with cars and motorcycles. But the company has
an interesting sideline: as a cost-saving measure, they’ve been exporting
soybeans from the US to Japan. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Nora
Flaherty has more:
Honda started exporting the beans as a way to reuse the huge cargo
containers that would arrive at the plant filled with auto parts. Instead of
sending them back empty, they wanted to fill the containers with something that
they could sell, and soy beans were a good fit. Joe Hannisik is the manager
of the plant, called Happy Ohio, where the beans are processed for shipping.
“We basically contract production with about 250 to 280 farmers in Ohio and
southern Michigan, for contract production, back to Happy Ohio, for processing and shipment of
soybeans primarily to Japan the majority of them.”
Honda only buys beans that haven’t been genetically modified, because that’s
what the Japanese prefer. And Honda pays farmers a higher price for their
beans than they’d get on the open market. Hannisik says that this can make a
difference when farmers are making decisions about whether to plant
genetically modified seeds.
For the GLRC, I’m Nora Flaherty.