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Great Lakes Sustainable Shipping Alliance outlines priorities

A coalition focused on increasing sustainable shipping across the Great Lakes is aligning priorities over the next year to help boost biofuel demand.

Michigan Soybean Committee Market Development Director Hanna Campbell tells Brownfield she’s been working for the past two years to bring together partners.

“We started attending meetings of transportation groups and marine industry and noticed that there weren’t really agricultural businesses or farmers at the table, we decided kind of to set our own table,” she explains.

Campbell says the Great Lakes Sustainable Shipping Alliance recently met for its inaugural meeting to highlight sustainability efforts and how biofuels can work in the shipping sector.

“When we start talking about soy-based biodiesel as a fuel for them, it works extremely well,” she shares. “It’s something that we already see happening all over the Great Lakes and a lot of people that aren’t using blends right now or are using very low blends were already talking about how they could increase that.”

She says ag exporters want more comparative information about Great Lakes Shipping costs and an action group over the next year will explore price discovery options for the St. Lawerence Seaway.

“We had some of our ag shippers in the room talking about when they’re looking to ship an agricultural product, they’re given certain shipping options, and given the cost for those,” she shares. “At this point, a lot of them are saying Great Lakes marine shipping out the St. Seaway is not one of those cost comparisons.”

Campbell says as more carbon reduction goals are implemented, biodiesel demand from the Great Lakes marine industry is expected to exceed what the state can produce and should benefit soybean farmers throughout the region.