Ongoing Coverage:

CoMo Explained

Tagged: exports

Pages

Harvest Public Media

11:21 am

Thu November 22, 2012

The local-global food connection

Credit Amy Mayer / Harvest Public Media

“We need to produce as much to feed the world as we can, but also people like to eat locally grown foods, too, so there’s a case for both sides of agriculture,” says Greg Rinehart, a farmer in Boone County, Iowa.

By Amy Mayer

Listen

The United States is the world’s leading producer and exporter of corn, which is used as livestock feed to support the increasing demand for meat in China, India and other countries with growing middle classes.

Agriculture

3:11 pm

Tue November 20, 2012

Drought spells tough times for US corn exporters

Next image Previous image

Credit Abbie Fentress Swanson/Harvest Public Media

This 20-barge flotilla will be pushed by Ingram towboats from the Upper Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico before the corn and soybeans in the cover-top barges and the metallic ore and shredded rubber in the open barges will be exported overseas.

Credit Abbie Fentress Swanson/Harvest Public Media

A look inside one of the covered corn barges in the flotilla. This barge, which has a fiberglass top that protects the grain from the weather, is holding 1,600 tons of corn.

Credit Abbie Fentress Swanson/Harvest Public Media

First mate Tyler Banicki stands atop a corn barge on a 20-barge flotilla headed to the Gulf of Mexico. To the right, Captain Ed Henleben checks out the Mississippi River. The R. Clayton McWhorter towboat in the rear will push these barges down river.

Credit Abbie Fentress Swanson/Harvest Public Media

Experienced deckhand Billy Vanhorn catches hold of a rope before we check out an empty barge.

Credit Abbie Fentress Swanson/Harvest Public Media

This tank barge carries liquids, like soybean oil, diesel fuel, petroleum and gas.

Credit Abbie Fentress Swanson/Harvest Public Media

One of the smaller tugs that pushes barges into rectangular units in harbors along the Mississippi.

Credit Abbie Fentress Swanson/Harvest Public Media

Grain barges are between 195 and 200 feet long and 35 feet wide.

By Abbie Fentress Swanson

While the U.S. remains the world’s biggest supplier of corn, American farmers will lose a portion of the global corn market this year.

The Midwest drought devastated the normally robust corn harvest, which has led to higher corn prices and plummeting corn stocks. In a normal year, the U.S. exports more than 1 billion bushels of corn to markets worldwide, but with low domestic supply it’s a tough year for corn exporters – the USDA predicts U.S. corn exports will be at a 40-year low this year.

Agriculture

12:27 pm

Tue November 6, 2012

South American farmers may benefit from US drought

Credit Rastoney/Flickr

With U.S. corn prices high thanks to the drought, some buyers are looking elsewhere for corn.

By Abbie Fentress Swanson

Corn prices hit record highs this past August when they soared to over $8 a bushel, in large part because the drought hammering U.S. farms decimated corn stocks. Such prices were a windfall for Midwest farmers who actually had corn to sell. But could high corn prices hurt farmers if they drive buyers looking for cheaper grain and feed to South American farms?

Politics

8:24 am

Thu August 16, 2012

Nixon says Missouri exports increase from 2011

Credit Ryan Famuliner / KBIA file photo

The Missouri state Capitol

By Associated Press

State officials say exports by Missouri businesses rose by 6 percent in the first half of the year compared with the same period in 2011.

Pages