National Ag News
USB members tour river transportation infrastructure
Soybean growers from several states got a close look at inland waterway infrastructure Thursday.
The ability to keep the inland waterway system moving is important to soybean producers like Casey Watkins, whose family raises 1500 acres of soybeans and dairy replacement heifers just south of the Illinois-Wisconsin border. “We make better quality and higher quantities of corn and soybeans every day, and we need to get it to our markets as fast as possible and as most efficient as possible and whether it’s up to us, whether it’s up to whoever, we need to be looking forward at expanding these locks and dams to be prepared for the future in next 50 years.”
Shipping has grown, and so have the size of the barges since the locks opened in 1934, and Watkins is concerned the 600-foot locks might need to be enlarged to accommodate barges without the nearly 2-hour-long task of untying and retying barges locking through.
Continue reading USB members tour river transportation infrastructure at Brownfield Ag News.
