The rapid expansion of renewable diesel production, driven by policies like the Renewable Fuel Standard, has spurred investment in new soybean crushing facilities. We investigate how six new facilities affect local soybean basis using elevator-level data from 2021- 2025. Employing static and dynamic staggered difference-in-differences (DiD) models, we find that new soybean crush plants increase the local soybean basis by approximately 9.6 cents per bushel within a 50-miles radius. Dynamic analysis shows impacts grow during the first four months reaching up to 30 cents per bushel before declining. These results demonstrate biofuel policies’ relevance in supporting rural economies, highlighting important implications for policy design.
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