Supply Chain Strategy Pt 1
I’m Bob Larson. Supply chain challenges have become a huge problem during the pandemic, and things may not get better any time soon. The delays in shipping and receiving have also driven the transportation costs higher and higher.
Washington State Farm Bureau’s Tom Davis says you need to look no further for supply chain problems than at our ports even though some of the numbers may not bear it out …
DAVIS … “What’s interesting is, looking at a recent study about what’s going on in our ports, the port activity is not in decline, it’s actually increased over the last year. So, they’re actually moving more product in and out of the ports now than before. The problem is, we keep placing our Amazon orders and so more and more product is coming into our country.”
Which is all part of the today’s online marketplace, but Davis says it’s not the only problem shippers have to deal with …
DAVIS … “Complicating that, going out of Long Beach, California, that port in particular, upwards of 70% of the containers going on to those ships to go back China are empty because they can make more money hauling them empty so they can fill them up faster and bring them back to us with our products. And so that puts our farmers at a disadvantage. We’re such a trade-dependent state and our folks have had a hard time obtaining the containers they need to ship out their products.”
Listen tomorrow for more on the port backups and the ongoing effort in Olympia to remedy these and other supply chain problems sooner rather than later.
