{"id":54970,"date":"2014-08-27T08:15:13","date_gmt":"2014-08-27T13:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=54970"},"modified":"2014-08-28T05:31:33","modified_gmt":"2014-08-28T10:31:33","slug":"latta-tours-local-firms-hears-fed-regulatory-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2014\/08\/27\/latta-tours-local-firms-hears-fed-regulatory-concerns\/","title":{"rendered":"Latta tours local firms, hears concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/b>independent editor<\/i><\/p>\n

U.S. Representative Bob Latta was in Van Wert on Tuesday to tour two local businesses and also hear concerns from the local business community.<\/p>\n

\"U.S.<\/a>
U.S. Representative Bob Latta (center) is shown plans for Advanced Biological Marketing’s new facility project by Curtis Gordon, ABM’s vice president of operations, while ABM CEO Dan Custis looks on. (Dave Mosier\/Van Wert independent)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Latta first toured National Door & Trim in Vision Park and then drove down the street to Advanced Biological Marketing (ABM), a globally directed agribusiness that is getting ready to construct a new facility in Vision Park.<\/p>\n

ABM CEO Dan Custis shared some information on the company, which develops agricultural \u201cbiologicals\u201d that increase crop yields and improve farm productivity.<\/p>\n

In addition to North America and Europe, Custis said ABM\u2019s products are currently being sold in all of Southeast Asia (including Vietnam), five Central American countries, several southern African and South American countries, as well as the Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a little worried about that,\u201d Custis said of the current Ukraine situation.<\/p>\n

The company uses distributors to market its products — which ABM developed in conjunction with Cornell University scientists — throughout the world. Since its founding in 2000, ABM has received more than $3.5 million in outside funding, including three grants from the USDA.<\/p>\n

While the company\u2019s domestic business is still the largest, Custis noted, adding that ABM works with most of the major seed companies, including Monsanto and Pioneer, he also predicted that the international market would catch up quickly because of the quality of ABM\u2019s products.<\/p>\n

Custis said he was especially interested in Africa — especially the central and southern portions of the continent.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got a passion for Africa,\u201d Custis said. \u201cNot that people aren\u2019t starving in other parts of the world, but Africa poses a real challenge, not just to us, but to Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to showing Latta plans for ABM\u2019s 78,000-square-foot production\/office facility to be built in Vision Park over the next two years, Custis also sought some assistance from the congressman to cut some red tape at the Food and Drug Administration regarding a food tracking system the company has developed.<\/p>\n

\"National<\/a>
National Door & Trim President Tom Turnwald and Rick Anderson give U.S. Rep. Bob Latta a tour of the company\u2019s new showroom and facility. (photo submitted)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The system uses non-toxic, non-allergenic markers to track food from a farmer\u2019s field to a consumer\u2019s table. Custis said the food tracking system was in the final stage of approval by the U.S. Department of Agriculture when the new Farm Bill was passed by Congress. Unfortunately, that legislation transferred the approval process for the system from the USDA to the FDA.<\/p>\n

Latta, who is on the House Agricultural Committee, said he would do what he could to help move the project forward, but<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can help speed up that process I would greatly appreciate it,\u201d Custis told Latta, noting that ABM is also working with a number of seed companies and other agribusiness firms to develop an implementation plan for the new system.<\/p>\n

Latta has often spoke of the excessive number of regulations U.S. companies must deal with, and cited ABM\u2019s problem with the FDA as just one of trillions of dollars, as well as valuable time, wasted dealing with federal regulations.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Latta will tour four agribusinesses in the Fifth District with Ohio Agriculture Director David Daniels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor U.S. Representative Bob Latta was in Van Wert on Tuesday to tour two local businesses and also hear concerns from the local business community. Latta first toured National Door & Trim in Vision Park and then drove down the street to Advanced Biological Marketing (ABM), a globally directed agribusiness that is getting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-04 03:45:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54970\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}