The long-awaited Panama Canal expansion has opened recently, doubling the waterway's capacity as well as availing to US soybean farmers access to faster and more efficient waterway transportation when delivering US soy to international end users.

The new, larger lane allows more freight to be loaded on each vessel, decreases transit time and lowers overall transportation costs as compared to the original canal.

Transportation is not only necessary, it's also a key aspect of the US soy industry's competitive advantage in the global marketplace, the United Soybean Board (USB) says. In fact, according to a soy-checkoff-funded study, foreign soy buyers often pay as much attention to the timeliness of deliveries as they do to the price. Currently, the US transportation system supports the most efficient soy supply chain in the world, which provides the US with a significant competitive advantage over South American soy suppliers.

While the expansion offers US soy opportunities to capitalise on faster, more efficient shipping, it also offers those opportunities to many other countries, including US soy's biggest competitors, Brazil and Argentina. For US soybean farmers to be able to fully capitalise on the expanded canal, domestic transportation infrastructure is in need of maintenance and repair to allow US soy to be moved into export position. Improvements are needed to accommodate larger ships and the increased volume of commodities moving via U.S. inland waterways.

"We need to focus on improving our infrastructure, especially the locks and dams on our inland waterways," Mark Seib, a farmer-leader on both the United Soybean Board and Soy Transportation Coalition from Poseyville, Indiana, said. "Panama has done an excellent job of maintaining and improving its infrastructure for over 100 years, and it's time to step up the work on ours."

The Panama Canal is integral to the movement of soy. Approximately 600 million bushels of US soybeans annually transit the Panama Canal, making soy the number one US agricultural commodity using the canal. In fact, 44% of total US soy exports move through the canal.

"The transportation of soy beyond the elevator is not something we soybean farmers usually see, but it is the backbone of our industry," Seib commented. "Without a reliable transportation connection between supply and demand, soybean farmers would not be able to deliver their crop to end users at home and abroad."

- United Soybean Board