Directors Tour Shipping Hot Spot

Every summer The Soy Transportation Coalition (STC) conducts its summer board meeting at a location that is instrumental to the transportation of soybeans and soy products and on July 7-8, STC held its summer board meeting in Seattle, Washington.

In addition to the board meeting, the group toured Louis Dreyfus’ export terminal, the MacMillan-Piper transloading facility, BNSF Railway’s Seattle International Gateway, the Tacoma Export Marketing Company, and the AGP export terminal at Grays Harbor.  Illinois farmers Dean Campbell, David Niekamp, Ron Kindred, and Phil Bradshaw and Iowa farmers Ed Ulch, Randy Van Kooten, and Roy Bardole participated in the trip.

The Pacific Northwest (PNW), including Seattle, is the second leading port region for the export of soybeans.  In 2008, 9,478 million metric tons of soybeans were exported from the PNW – second only to the Mississippi Gulf region (see Table 1).

Analysis recently conducted by the STC highlighted how the two leading destinations for soybeans, once loaded into a rail car, are the Seattle-Tacoma region and the Portland, Oregon region (see Table 2).  The two PNW regions receive 47.71 percent of soybeans shipped by rail.  These shipments are, in turn, loaded onto ocean vessels destined for the export market.

“The soybean industry is an increasingly global enterprise,” says Dean Campbell, soybean producer from Coulterville, Illinois, and Chairman of the Soy Transportation.  “More and more of what we farmers grow locally is consumed internationally.  This places more pressure on the transportation system to ensure those deliveries are made to our customers.  If the soybean industry wants to keep expanding its overseas markets, it requires us to care about the transportation system that will make it all possible.”

[caption id="attachment_113" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Soy Transportation Coalition members watching grain be unloaded at the Tacoma Export Marketing Company"][/caption]

Randy Van Kooten, farmer from Lynnville, Iowa, and STC board member concurs, “During the visit to Seattle, we were able to observe shipping containers being filled with Midwest soybean meal for the export market.  It’s important for farmers to see the entire logistics chain that serves the journey from farm to dinner plate and understand the challenges each step faces.  After all, a breakdown in one area will disrupt the entire delivery.”

The Soy Transportation Coalition was established in 2007 by seven state soybean boards, the American Soybean Association, and the United Soybean Board.  The organization’s mission is to promote a cost effective, reliable, and competitive transportation system for the soybean industry.