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Great Lakes becoming a stronger ag shipping option

An official in charge of Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway development says there are signs of added agricultural market opportunities.

Adam Tindle-Schlicht is the Administrator of the Great Lakes-St Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation. He says, “DDG’s is going to be a growth opportunity for Seaway-Great Lakes trade. I would dare submit that we’re going to see additional growth in soybean exports of meal, which is a shift in agricultural exports from what traditionally has been a whole-bean export market.”

Tindle-Schlicht tells Brownfield along with new facilities including the DeLong Agricultural Maritime Export Facility at the Port of Milwaukee, the former General Mills grain elevator in Duluth harbor is once again becoming a grain shipping option. “It’s now being aggressively marketed by the new ownership. This is going to provide a new trade lane, a new corridor opportunity for farmers, particularly in the western states of the Great Lakes and the plains.”

And, he says the former Cargill facility at Burns Harbor, Indiana might have a new operator soon.

Tindle-Schlicht says there has also been an increase in containerized agricultural shipments with new facilities coming online. “The container operation at the Port of Cleveland has long been substantiated. Last season, the Port of Duluth in Minnesota opened up its container facility, and we have high optimism that another container facility will soon operate at the Port of Monroe in Michigan.”

A recent report shows 135 million tons of freight move through the Great Lakes-St Lawrence Seaway system each year.

Without Great Lakes shipping, Tindle-Schlicht says the North American economy would miss 36 billion dollars in economic activity. 

Two-hundred forty thousand jobs in the U.S. and Canada rely on the Great Lakes shipping, generating almost 18 billion in wages paid.