Tell us a little bit more about that.

Yeah, we have a captive farmer audience, so we're going to take full advantage of it and put them to work in the advocacy space as well.

But I think there'll be... uh, are the farmers visiting will be anxious to do so.

Um, we're going to, we're going to advocate, uh, in the biofuel space, we're going to organize a letter writing campaign to members of the state legislature.

And, you know, the, the biofuel market dynamic where we're at right now is really interesting, right? We've had huge wins at the federal level, which is kind of the foundation of biofuel policy.

And recently the The current administration finalized new requirements for the amount of biofuels that have to be blended into the fuel supply.

It's been a huge win, particularly in the area of renewable diesel, biobased diesel.

Tell us more about that.

Yeah, Dusty, it's a fun event.

We, uh, always have a great mix of industry representatives and farmers, and for some of the farmers that are playing, this is kind of a last hurrah before they, uh, climb into the combine cab, uh, for the, for the season.

But yeah, an important fundraiser for our association to help support our advocacy work.

Uh, a lot of the dollars, uh, coming from corporate sponsors will go directly to the general fund for the association, and that helps us on the lobbying front.

A lot of individual contributions, uh, the, uh, people who are members of ours that participate in this event also go to, uh, support our political action committee.

And, you know, we're in an election year, you know how important that, uh, engagement is to support your advocacy work, to have that political engagement.

Well, membership's so important when it comes to the Soybean Association because council checkoff dollars can't be used for that advocacy work, but it takes more than just membership dollars, and so fundraisers like this are really important in the total mix.

Brandon is Deputy Executive Director and Senior Policy Director for the Ohio Soybean Association and tells us about some of the highlights from this year's Hometown Tour.

As you know, bringing policy information close to farmers, you know, where they're at in their community is an important part of the hometown tours, what we strive to accomplish with these regional meetings.

And so we're always so fortunate, and this year we were as well, to be joined by, you know, policymakers from across the states.

We had Congressman Bob Latta joined us.

State Representative Reardon McClain joined us.

State Representative Bob Peterson and State Senator Shane Wilkin all joined us for conversations at the different hometown tours this year to talk about what's going on in Congress.

what's going on with the legislature that's important to soybean farmers.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

As you know, bringing policy information close to farmers, you know, where they're at in their community is an important part of the hometown tours, what we strive to accomplish with these regional meetings.

And so we're always so fortunate.

And this year we were as well to be joined by, you know, policymakers from across the states.

We had Congressman Bob Latta joined us.

State Representative Reardon McClain joined us.

Tell us a little bit more about that.

What can you tell us?

That's gonna be in Bucyrus at, at Reinhard Farms, and, uh, this agenda there is gonna be, uh, really exciting.

So we're gonna have, uh, a policy component, a policy roundtable.

Congressman Bob Latta's gonna join us.

Uh, State Representative Whetan McClain's gonna join us, and we'll have a couple farmer advocacy leaders, uh, on a panel with them, kind of having a conversation and back and forth about key developments in the pu- in the public policy space impacting, uh, soybean production and, and agriculture policy.

Uh, we'll have a, a biofuel focus with the, uh, Soybean Checkoff providing updates on what the biofuel market looks like and what the op- opportunity for that is here even in Ohio regionally.

And then, of course, the results of the Crop Tour, which will happen the day before and that day on, on the 11th earlier in the day.

Both those two days similar agenda with, uh, legislators also able to join on the second day and have a roundtable?