News

Perdue, farmers tout study supporting river infrastructure investment

A new USDA report shows investing in the Mississippi and Illinois River lock and dam system can boost agricultural sales and improve prices for farmers.

Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue says spending 6-point-3 billion over the next ten years would boost ag sales as much as 142 billion dollars through 2045. 

Joe Smentek with the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association tells Brownfield the waterway infrastructure has upkeep needs that haven’t been met. “We’re hoping to be able to use this report and a collective voice of the ag community and all of the communities that use that river transportation system to go to Congress to get appropriations to not only maintain the system but make improvements in the system.”

Mark Hoffman with the Wisconsin Corn Growers Association says the river also relieves stress on other transportation infrastructure. “The river system keeps a lot of truck traffic off the roads and off the rail system, which none of it is getting any newer.”

Wisconsin Corn Growers President Doug Rebout tells Brownfield, “If one of those lock and dam systems goes down, it’s not like they can just make a little detour around it and keep everything going. That will shut down the whole Mississippi River, or whatever river that lock and dam system is on.” Flooding this year kept barge traffic off the rivers north of St. Louis for about twelve weeks, limiting grain shipments downstream and fertilizer shipments upstream.

The study by Informa’s Agribusiness Consulting shows investing in the river system would raise the volume of shipped farm products from 160 million tons to more than 216 million tons through 2045, reduce the cost of shipping grain overseas, and keep the U.S. competitive in the world market.