Investing in Infrastructure Keeps Markets Moving

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

Collaboration between the Soy Transporation Colation, American Soybean Association, U.S Soybean Export Counsel, and United Soybean Board has propelled better distribution of American soybeans. Meagan Kaiser who serves as the chair of the United Soybean Board said these groups saw a need for improved infrastructure and teamed up to invest in this initiative.

Kaiser… “What’s keeping some of these instrumental infrastructure projects from happening and what role could we do to help break down those barriers? And the answer, the first one we tried was dredging of the lower Mississippi River and the reason that that project wasn't proceeding is that there just wasn’t funding for planning, engineering, and design. So we said well, we can actually invest in that. And so we, as a soy checkoff said, we’re going to put up $2 million dollars, almost as a pledge, because at that time, we didn’t even know if anyone could receive it. It took all those partners working almost two years for the federal government and the state of Louisiana to say, yes, we figured out how to receive those funds, and we could be good partners. So our $2 million dollar investment was met with a $245 million dollar investment from our federal and state partners. Because of that, we’re now able to load these ocean vessels further up the river, all the way up to Baton Rouge. We’re able to load them heavier, be more reliable, quicker at the Gulf of Mexico into the global marketplace.”

That’s Meagan Kaiser, United Soybean Board chair.