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Longshoremen’s contract important to farmers

The Executive Director of the Soy Transportation Coalition says farmers needed the newly announced longshoremen’s labor deal.

Mike Steenhoek tells Brownfield keeping ports open maintains a consistent and reliable supply chain. “You’d rather have a predictably good supply chain than a sporatically great supply chain. You want it to be something that you can count on, and that will be there for you not only today and tomorrow but the weeks, months, and years to come so having that predictibility is really key.”

Steenhoek says when supply chains are disrupted, freight still must move but it costs more, so consumers and farmers pay the price. “In most cases with agriculture, it gets absorbed by the farmer in the form of a more negetive basis and so farmers are often the ones that are the ones who get penalized.”

Steenhoek says the world sees the U.S. as the most reliable supplier of food and nutrition but when supply chains are disrupted, foreign buyers go elsewhere, and it’s very hard to win those buyers back.

Steenhoek says the major sticking point in negotiations was protecting union jobs from port automation and it’s unclear how the two sides resolved the issue.  “You had one side, the International Longshoreman’s Association that represents the dock workers say there will be no additional automation or technology embraced at these ports and then you had the U.S. Maritime Alliance and they represent the port operators and the port authorities and ocean vessel companies saying we need some degree of that if we’re going to hope to be competitive.”

The labor unions still must ratify the deal that was announced Wednesday.

Audio: Mike Steenhoek discusses why the new labor contract for port workers is important for farmers with Brownfield’s LarryLee