• Across the United States, the potential to use homegrown crops in new ways holds tremendous promise to revitalize the rural economy. Innovators across the country - from small businesses to global companies - are creating amazing new biobased products that we use every day. Everything from cleaning products to packaging materials are now made from crops grown right here at home by America's farmers.
• In recent years, USDA has taken steps to support these efforts through the "BioPreferred" program, designed to help companies market biobased products. Additionally, under President Obama, the Federal government has prioritized these biobased products for procurement and use.
• This week, USDA expanded the variety of biobased products that the Federal government will purchase and use. We added new categories - including new cleaners for marine and aviation use, biobased cleaning products, paint removers, motor oil and more. With this expansion, we now recognize 97 separate product categories and more than 10,000 unique types of biobased products.
• The Federal government is already using a wide variety of these biobased products. For example, Yellowstone National Park uses biobased lubricants and cleaning products throughout its 2.2 million acres. At the Statue of Liberty, biobased hy

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