Soybean association approves new strategic plan

The American Soybean Association’s (ASA) Board of Directors approved a new plan at its winter meetings focused on policies and trade through 2021.

“We are a proud organization with a long history of driving profitability for our farmer members, and this plan will help ensure that we progress in that role over the next five years,” ASA President Wade Cowan, a farmer from Brownfield, Texas, said. “In 2020, ASA will celebrate 100 years of championing the issues of soybean farmers, and there is no better way to honor that legacy than by making the strategic changes necessary to ensure our organization is strong and agile for years to come.”

The new plan includes additional policy personnel and resources by shifting resources previously and currently devoted to membership recruitment; partnering with states to invest in ASA’s leadership development programs; and restructuring board representation formulas, responding to requests to provide flexibility to states on membership so that it best helps the individual state. This will include restructuring the Board of Directors and board meeting formats to better focus its time on issues important to soybean farmers, and establishing a Soy Regulatory Issues Coalition.

The plan is the result of ASA task force discussions that took place over the past two years.