News

Global trade still battling shipping challenges

Ag economists say the shortage of shipping containers is just another hurdle for the livestock industry to clear this year.

During a recent Market Outlook webinar, hosted by Brownfield, Oklahoma State University’s Derrell Peel said we first started to see port disruptions in February of last year.  “Some of the earliest indications of the pandemic impacts were actually in shipping and port disruptions,” he says.  “Even before it was an issue domestically in the US we began to get those indications in China and other places that we had port disruptions.”

Iowa State University ag economist Lee Schulz says it’s another bottle neck disrupting global trade flow and adds cost to US agricultural products, like pork.  “When we have the highest pork prices we’ve ever had in 2020, and pork prices are looking even stronger here, he says.  “You’re adding that cost and we’re potentially less competitive on the world market.”

Scott Brown, an ag economist at the University of Missouri says the shipping disruptions could create lasting impacts to demand for US agricultural goods.  “If those costs stay with us, it changes the landscape of where it’s cheapest to produce products,” he says.  “So we might get some more production happening in other countries that would have taken trade had the cost of shipping been lower.”

Check out the full webinar HERE.