What can be done to reduce transportation costs for products to be imported and exported to local areas

Because it is one of the major agricultural hubs in the world, the Central Valley imports and exports many goods and products throughout not just the United States but parts of the world as well. However, transportation costs for exporting and importing in the Central Valley can be excessive depending on the products. For example, Aemetis uses corn for bioethanol production but gets its corn from farms in the Midwest. A potential solution that can reduce costs would be to take advantage of the biomass we have to create goods rather than import goods we can make locally.