The National Grain and Feed Association (NGFA), together with the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) and Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) hosted a webinar last Thursday, July 9, highlighting an in-depth look at the research and outcome of a study done by TTI on how congestion and wait times during the transportation of U.S. agriculture commodities can be costly, thus decreasing the producer's revenue, increasing export prices and making U.S. products less competitive on the world market.
According to a report at Progressive Farmer, it's not enough to know just the cost of a truck or rail rates or barge freight when moving corn or soybeans to market. Transportation costs include the base cost of transporting these products, as well as costs associated with delay.
A new tool developed by TTI and USDA can help strengthen the industry's argument for transportation improvements. It is called M.A.R.K.E.T. (Measuring Agricultural Relevance of Key Expenditures in Transportation) and is free to use. It's designed to provide "high-level estimates" of the relative benefit to the grain sector of roadway infrastructure projects, inland waterways projects and improvements to multimodal facilities.
Click here to link to the tool.
Read the full report at Progressive Farmer.
