Grain Export Bottleneck Suggests Need for More Local Ag

Maybe there's a natural limit to how big agribusiness can get: the bottleneck in grain shipments shows that, no matter how much demand overseas for American ag products may be booming, America's rail, barge, and port systems can only move so much grain. Without more transportation capacity, the piles of wheat and corn sitting on the ground outside the elevators will only get bigger, meaning more handling costs and more product lost to weather and varmints (see Christopher Leonard and Catherine Tsai, "US Grain Exports Snagged by Infrastructure Delays," AP via Yahoo Finance, 2008.08.24].

Maybe we can solve the bottleneck by building more rails, bigger locks, and more ships. Of course, we also have to pay that transportation capacity and the fuel and workers to run it. More capacity won't do us much good if we can't afford to use it.

So maybe we can pursue a different solution to the bottleneck: pour less through the bottle. What if we moved some of our production away from the agri-industrial commodity export model and used more of our land to produce food we eat right here? Instead of pouring more grain on the ground to wait for ships to carry it to China, what if we raised more grain, fruit, vegetables, and livestock that traveled no more than 50 miles to feed the farmers' immediate neighbors?

Local ag, self-sufficiency... just something to think about!