This article was published by American Journal of Transportation on May 14, 2024.
Trends in water levels, infrastructure investment, global supply chain challenges and crop production all impact freight movement in the St. Louis region and around the world. That was the topic of conversation during a FreightWeekSTL panel discussion on May 14 hosted by the St. Louis Regional Freightway. The session featured Ken Eriksen who shared the latest trends and future outlooks for agriculture and the barge industry. Eriksen is a managing member and strategic advisor at Polaris Analytics & Consulting.
For the past two years, Eriksen said the Mississippi River has experienced low water conditions that will need to continue to be monitored, especially given the low Missouri River Basin snowpack this season. The Panama Canal also has faced low water levels with droughts resulting from El Nino, but he said shippers are now finally starting to see those levels increase.
“The Panama Canal is very important because grain and other resources that move down the Mississippi River system and are loaded on vessels in the U.S. Center Gulf use the canal when shipping to Asia,” Eriksen said. “The U.S. Center Gulf serves two to three dozen markets for corn, soybeans, wheat and other products, serving significantly more markets than the Pacific Northwest or the U.S. East Coast.”
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