INVESTING CHECKOFF DOLLARS
Conceptual image of containerized shipping on the Mississippi River.
CONTAINERIZED SHIPPING A Localized Supply Chain in a Global Marketplace
BY MIKE STEENHOEK
“W
ho is your customer?” This is perhaps the most elementary of questions for any enterprise or industry to answer if they are to enjoy success. When asking farmers this question, the answers can be quite varied. Is it the local elevator? After all, that’s where soybeans are often first delivered and it’s who pays the farmer for the bushels produced. Is it the soybean processor who purchases the soybeans from the local elevator? Is it the livestock industry, since pigs, cattle, chickens and fish
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consume the meal produced from soybeans? Is it the consumer, whether in the U.S. or another country, who purchases meat? One of the reasons this basic question produces such a variety of answers from farmers is because of having a supply chain designed and created to involve multiple steps of consolidation and aggregation. As Iowa soybeans journey from the farm to elevator to the rail or barge loading facility to export terminal, a number of degrees of separation emerge between the farmer and the ultimate consumer.
Overall, this supply chain has served U.S. farmers well. Billions of bushels of soybeans and grain are transported significant distances in a cost-effective, reliable manner. Our efficient transportation process remains one of the key global competitive advantages for U.S. soybean farmers. While the current supply chain — designed to transport soybeans and grain in bulk quantities — must be maintained and enhanced, an increasingly attractive complement to this model is transporting soybeans and other agricultural products via shipping containers.
