Soybeans, Transportation Dominate Regional Exports

WKMS | By Todd Hatton

Published April 10, 2015 at 12:10 PM CDT

A new report from the Office of the United States Trade Representative shows soybeans and transportation equipment dominated exports from Kentucky, Illinois, and Tennessee in 2014. Soybeans led key agricultural exports in the Four Rivers region with over $4 billion combined, or close to 20% of the U.S. total. Illinois topped that category with over $3 billion. Kentucky exported $13.7 billion of transportation equipment, the largest share of the three states' combined $29 billion in key manufacturing. According to the United States of Trade report, exports supported over 640,000 regional jobs; 345,050 in Illinois, 158,913 in Tennessee, and 137,138 in Kentucky.

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Todd Hatton

Todd Hatton hails from Paducah, Kentucky, where he got into radio under the auspices of the late, great John Stewart of WKYX while a student at Paducah Community College. He also worked at WKMS in the reel-to-reel tape days of the early 1990s before running off first to San Francisco, then Orlando in search of something to do when he grew up. He received his MFA in Creative Writing at Murray State University. He vigorously resists adulthood and watches his wife, Angela Hatton, save the world one plastic bottle at a time.

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