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.
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Recent USDA export sales data show China has been active in the U.S. market, but analysts tell RFD-TV News that the timing is a key clue.
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USDA Undersecretary Luke Lindberg told RFD-TV News that we can only guess what Congress will do down the road. Still, the USDA recognizes its responsibility to spend resources efficiently and effectively.
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National Land Realty’s Jeramy Stephens shares his outlook on farmland market trends, which remain under close watch as new federal assistance programs roll out — with experts analyzing potential impacts on land values, buying, and stability.
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Michelle Perez shares more about the American Farmland Trust’s resource to help farmers and producers plan soil health improvements.
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