Competitive Shipping Update: SSGA appears at IANA Expo

The Specialty Soya and Grains Alliance is being represented at the Intermodal Association of North America’s 2021 Intermodal Expo being held this week in Long Beach, California.

SSGA Strategic Adviser for Trade and Transportation Bruce Abbe was an invited participant on an exporters panel that discussed the complex supply chain challenges export shippers have been experiencing recently and what the impact has been on their global trade customers overseas. The session is fittingly titled, “Exporters – A Voice in the Intermodal Wilderness.”

Dan Miller, global container lead for Cargill, and Charles Ferraro, global category manager, logistics for FMC Corporation also appeared on the panel. Mike Williams, senior vice president, logistics solutions for ContainerPort Group, was the moderator.

In addition to the discussions about supply chain problems, here are a few additional bits of positive news developments heard in the halls at IANA 2021, a major industry event focused on all sectors of the intermodal shipping industry – ocean, rail, trucking/drayage and logistics:

• Minot, North Dakota – Word is, Minot’s renewed intermodal facility served by BNSF railroad has handled some 40 trains since it got rolling again. Bulk transloaded grain products are a key freight.
• Pocatello, Idaho – Union Pacific is about to start a new modest intermodal rail terminal operation, similar to BNSF’s Minot operation, in Pocatello, with direct service to Tacoma. Boxes will come in out of Chicago, much like Minot’s. Barley, lumber products and potatoes (French fries, eventually) are the key freight.
• Coos Bay, Oregon – There is background discussion that Coos Bay, a modestly sized port on the Oregon coast is seriously moving to expand its ocean container service capability. While it’s a further haul from the Midwest and plains than Portland, which is also working to reinvigorate its container ship service capability after losing it during a period of port labor strife a few years back, Coos Bay is right on the ocean without a long trek for the container ships up the Columbia River.

Ag industry sends urgent plea to ease crisis
More than 70 national agricultural organizations, including SSGA, this week delivered an urgent plea to the Biden Administration to take steps to relieve the supply chain shipping crisis facing U.S. exporters.

A White House Supply Chain Task Force has been holding virtual meetings with agriculture and food industry stakeholders to identify near term solutions. SSGA Board Chairman Bob Sinner participated in the ag session.

Go here to view the joint industry letter sent to President Biden, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Federal Maritime Commissioner Dan Maffei, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Council of Economic Advisors Chair Cecilia Rouse.

Spreading the news
SSGA recently contributed a post on the current state of container shipping, recapping Federal Maritime Commissioner Carl Bentzel’s GTE presentation, to the Illinois Soybean Association’s “Bean There” trade ad exports blog. Illinois Soybean Association sponsored the GTE, along with seven other state groups. Check out the article here.