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.
Brooks York with Agri-Sompo discusses how this year’s pricing period played out and what it could mean for farmers heading into the end of the season.
November 03, 2025 12:54 PM
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China’s crusher losses and Brazil tensions, Gale warns, could reopen critical soybean trade channels for U.S. producers.
November 03, 2025 11:13 AM
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Persistently low Mississippi River levels are turning logistics challenges into pricing risks — tightening margins for grain producers and exporters across the heartland.
November 03, 2025 10:20 AM
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The WASDE/Crop Production combo will be the first full read on supply, demand, and yield that could move basis and hedging plans since the government shutdown more than a month ago.
November 03, 2025 09:34 AM
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China’s grain expansion model may be hitting its limit. Lower prices, high rents, and policy fatigue threaten future output — with ripple effects across global feed and oilseed markets.
November 02, 2025 05:06 AM
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Market analyst and friend of the show, Shawn Hackett, says Brazil’s shifting use of crops for biofuel production is a significant factor.
October 31, 2025 01:17 PM
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