Quantifying the land‐use change due to soybean‐based biodiesel in the United States

Ruiqing Miao, Yijia Li, Madhu Khanna, Christopher Clark, Dallas Burkholder and Luoye Chen

Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, 2026, vol. 48, issue 1, 20-47

Abstract: We quantify the impact of soybean oil‐based biodiesel production on US cropland, using a method that accounts for the intermediate effect of soybean crushing facilities. Based on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data for biodiesel production and proprietary data for soybean crushing facilities over 2011–2020, we find that the elasticities of soybean acreage and total cropland acreage with respect to soybean oil‐based biodiesel production are 0.011 and 0.002, respectively. The direct land‐use effect of soybean oil‐based biodiesel is about 0.96 million acres of cropland expansion per billion gallons, about twice as high as some estimates for corn ethanol from previous studies.

Date: 2026
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https://doi.org/10.1002/aepp.70005

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:apecpp:v:48:y:2026:i:1:p:20-47

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