Kellan Heavican
Brownfield Ag Network
The CEO of the Kansas Soybean Association says demand for biofuels is helping increase soybean oil production.
Kaleb Little tells Brownfield says there’s been significant growth for biodiesel and renewable diesel. “There are some state policies that really help support that, but really the RFS is the big key there and getting those proposed volumes at the increased level that we saw from EPA is just going to be huge support for those for those new fresh plants.”
The proposed rule from EPA sets Renewable Volume Obligations at 5.62 billion gallons for biomass-based diesel fuel.
Last week, the USDA raised its outlook for soybean oil use by biofuel producers in the 2025-26 marketing year to a record of 15.5 billion gallons. Little tells Brownfield, “The oil value is really driving the bus a lot more than it used to. It used to be that it was a drag. It’s just protein meal, that’s the key player there. But we’re seeing almost 50% value share for soybean oil of the whole soybeans.”
He says the increase in value is exceptional since oil is about 20 percent of the actual soybean.
The USDA projection would be 26.5 percent higher than the current marketing year.
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