The lyrics to a Diamond Rio song gave rise to the “Meet Me in The Middle” theme of this year’s Soybean Festival and were spoken by Soybean Festival Chairman David Belote at the Mayor’s Luncheon, which was the official kick-off to the 13th Annual Tennessee Soybean Festival.

In keeping with the theme of community spirit, Belote said that there were “Twenty-five community organizations, merchants and companies who sponsored events at the festival. There are 70+ individuals, organizations, merchants and companies who provide financial support of the festival. We can’t do it without those kinds of resources.”

Part of the luncheon was to hand out many different awards, including the Martin Beautiful Awards. UTM won the award for a Public Place, with the award being accepted by Provost and Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs Dr. Tom Rakes. The Baptist Student Ministry also took home an award in the Church-Related category.

This year, the main focus of the luncheon was to learn how soybeans can be used in making biodiesel, which is quickly becoming the fuel of choice for America, and to explain how soybeans are used in making this product. Scott Hughes, Director of Governmental Affairs for the National Biodiesal Board, was the main speaker at this year’s luncheon.

Hughes, who grew up on a soybean farm, works with different organizations, such as the Tennessee Soybean Association to help advance polices for biodiesel.

“What we try to focus on is research, testing and education about biodiesel,” said Hughes. In his presentation entitled “Biodiesel and Soybeans: A Winning Combination,” he educated the audience on the past, present and future of the biodiesel industry and how soybeans have and will continue to play a big part.

“The soybean industry in the early 1990’s were looking for new markets for soybean oil,” said Hughes. “Something needed to be done to try and find a new use for soybean oil to help bump up those prices. Over in Europe, rapeseed oil was being used to make this clean-burning fuel called biodiesel. The U.S. soybean farmers took note of that and began to see if they could make biodiesel with soybean oil.”

Hughes also said that, after learning this, soybean farmers began investing millions of dollars into the biodiesel program. To show how closely related soybeans are to biodiesel, he explained that the National Biodiesel Board was once called the National Soybean Development Board.

The biodiesel industry has “enjoyed some exponential growth since 1999,” said Hughes. “At that point in time, there was roughly five hundred thousand gallons of biodiesel oil produced in the U.S. Between 2005 and 2006, we doubled the production in the U.S. Based on some early data that we’ve received, we should be anywhere between 150 and 200 million gallons of production in the U.S. this year.”

“Biodiesel certainly won’t displace conventional diesel fuel completely,” Hughes said. But they hope to expand the existing diesel fuel market, which he says should help lower our dependency on foreign oil and hopefully level out those gas prices that had many of us cringing.