DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A long period of hot and dry weather has left the Mississippi River so low that barge companies are reducing their loadings just as Midwestern farmers prepare to harvest their crops and send tons of corn and soybeans downstream to the Gulf of Mexico.
Transportation restrictions are a headache for barge companies, but even more worrisome for thousands of farmers who watched drought burn their fields for much of the summer. They will now face higher prices to transport what remains of their crops.
Farmer Bruce Peterson, who grows corn and soybeans in southeastern Minnesota, laughed wryly as he said the dry weather had wilted his family’s crops so much that they wouldn’t have to worry as much the high cost of transporting goods downstream.
“We haven’t had rain here in several weeks, so our crop sizes are going down,” Peterson said. “Unfortunately, that fixed part of the problem.”
About 60% of U.S. grain exports are shipped by barge down the Mississippi to New Orleans, where corn, soybeans and wheat are stored and eventually transferred to other ships. This is generally an inexpensive and efficient way to transport crops, as a typical group of 15 barges moored together carries as much cargo as about 1,000 trucks.
But as river levels fall, that cost has climbed. The freight rate from St. Louis to the South is now up 77% above the three-year average.
Prices have risen because the river south of St. Louis no longer stays deep enough to accommodate typical barges, forcing companies to load less into each vessel and connect fewer barges together.
North of St. Louis, a series of locks and dams guarantees a 9-foot-deep (2.7-meter) canal to the Minneapolis-St. Paul. But that’s not the case in the lower Mississippi.
“We’re still making things happen, but we might need a little rain and some help from Mother Nature,” said Merritt Lane, president of the Canal Barge Company of New Orleans.
Canal Barge, which operates much of the Mississippi as well as the Illinois and Ohio rivers, has had to lighten loads so barges go higher in the water. The company also can’t connect as many barges together because the shipping lane is narrower, Lane said.
A narrowed shipping lane also means barges from different companies have to squeeze into limited space, leading to setbacks and delays.
It’s the second year in a row drought caused the Mississippi to fall to near-record lows. With no significant rain forecast, it is likely that precipitation will continue to fall.
The shallow river is particularly striking given the height of the river just a few months ago. A massive snowpack in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin quickly melted, forcing riverside communities such as Davenport, Iowa, and Savanna, Illinois, to hastily erect barriers to stay dry in late April and early May.
Although the floodwaters quickly receded, they left behind mountains of underwater sand, forcing the Corps of Engineers to “dredge like crazy” to clear a shipping channel, said Tom Heinold, who commands the Corps’ Rock Island District, which extends 300 miles. Mississippi, from northern Iowa south to Missouri.
“After the flood this spring, the situation was delicate,” Heinold said. “In May and June, we were jumping from place to place very quickly trying to open pilot channels as the water was going down.”
The northern reaches of the river are now in good condition, but dredging continues south of St. Louis, Heinold said.
Months of dry, hot weather hit the Midwest hard, damaging crops across much of the region west of the Mississippi River. In Kansas, 40% of the soybean crop was reported in poor or very poor conditions, and the same conditions were seen for 40% of the corn crop in Missouri.
The Midwest produces most of the nation’s corn and soybeans. The percentage of good to excellent ratings nationally was just over 50%, the worst rating in more than a decade.
Then there is the higher cost of transporting crops downstream.
Mike Steenhoek, executive director of the Soy Transportation Coalition, said many Midwestern farmers have several transportation options, including trucking and rail shipping for use by nearby ethanol and biodiesel plants. and for processing into animal feed. But for grain exported from the United States, the higher cost of shipping through the Mississippi hurts.
“This is the way farmers in the central United States connect to the international market,” said Steenhoek, whose group advocates for efficient crop transportation systems. “This allows these farmers to have a very efficient way to move their products long distances in a very economical manner.”
Rising barge costs are directly hurting farmers’ profits at a time when U.S. soybean and corn exports face increased international competition, he said.
From his job site on the banks of the Mississippi River in Red Wing, Minnesota, Jim Larson watches the river rise and fall with the seasons. He has seen many droughts and floods during his 30 years in business and said it requires everyone who relies on the river to remain nimble.
“Some years there’s flooding, some years there’s drought, and sometimes both in the same year,” said Larson, manager of Red Wing Grain, a grain storage and loading company. “It’s crazy and it seems like lately we have more of both, and so you have to be adaptable and change with the situation that’s presented to you. It kind of keeps you on your toes.”
