Some New England residents are turning to soybeans for heat. It is called bio-heat, and growers say it has become a solid market.
“It’s caught on well, very, very popular. People love it, and there’s a whole industry developed around it now, about what modifications and so forth are done to the heating plants of furnaces, if you will, the boilers, and so it’s pretty neat, and it’s become a nice demand center for our soybean oil. It burns cleaner. It has fewer carbon deposits. It has a lot easier maintenance. It has natural lubricity, which of course, when we took sulfur out of our petroleum-based products, we lost a lot of lubricity, so there’s a lot of built-in advantages and that’s what they like about it,” said Andy Bensend, District One Director, Wisconsin Soybean Marketing Board.
Bensend says it has been a gradual process. First, homeowners turned to fuels like bio-diesel over traditional heating oil, and from there, bio-heat took off.
Purdue University’s Dr. Michael Langemeier discusses the survey’s findings in February and broader signals in the months ahead.
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Roger McEowen of Washburn University School of Law joined us to discuss key legal and tax issues ranchers should consider as they recover from recent prairie fires across the Southern Plains.
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March 03, 2026 07:00 AM
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Falling commodity prices and rising costs continue to squeeze farm margins. Kip Jacobs with The Mosaic Company addresses fertilizer market pressures, nutrient use efficiency, and strategies growers can consider to protect their fertilizer investment this season.
March 03, 2026 05:00 AM
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Weather Swings Shape Early Season Farm Conditions Nationwide
March 02, 2026 02:54 PM
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Kurt Kovarik of Clean Fuels Alliance America joined us to break down the latest developments in the Renewable Fuel Standard rulemaking process and what it could mean for agriculture, energy markets, and rural economies.
March 02, 2026 02:25 PM
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