Soy-based pavement technology replaces, renews 24 miles of rural Iowa roadways
AMES, Iowa (February 4, 2026) – A train of heavy equipment slowly worked its way across 8.6 miles of a northeast Iowa county road last summer.
The corn growing along C14 just south of West Union was dark green and high. Farmhouses and outbuildings were on the horizon. The ditches along the roadway were freshly mowed. It was a good day to fix a rural road built in the 1960s, patched up and covered over ever since, now deteriorated and even crumbling beneath the surface.
The fix was soy pavement technology developed by Iowa State University engineers.
The repairs to C14 were part of a full-scale, 24-mile demonstration of “soy roads” in rural areas of Fayette and Clayton counties and the town of Volga. Four different road projects used soybean-based paving products developed by Iowa State engineers Eric Cochran, the Mary Jane Skogen Hagenson and Randy L. Hagenson Professor in Chemical and Biological Engineering, Christopher Williams, the Gerald and Audrey Olson Professor in Civil Engineering, and their research groups. The technology is now produced by their startup company, SoyLei Innovative Products.
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Originally published by Iowa State University in February 2026.