Barge Transportation And Agriculture Outlook
Recently returned from the Inland Marine Expo in Nashville, Tenn., Ken Eriksen, principal of Polaris Consulting and a senior leader and strategic adviser in commodities, supply chain, logistics and transportation, gave a presentation at the St. Louis Freightweek STL2025 event, which ran from June 2 through June 6.
Eriksen spoke on “The Evolving Landscape of Barge Transportation and Agriculture.” The event was moderated by Mary Lamie, executive vice president of multimodal enterprises and executive director of St. Louis Freightway.
Eriksen noted that his firm has been commissioned by Big River Coalition to conduct a study of the Mississippi River Ship Channel from Baton Rouge to the mouth, including the effects of draft restrictions and reduced freight capacities on freight rates as a component of the “basis” crop price for farmers.
While preliminary results of that study were released earlier this year, it won’t be ready until late summer. Eriksen did share some insights on Mississippi River commerce, which he said averages $273 million a day in barge-loaded cargo—mostly grains, including soybeans, with some coal, steel and aggregate. Ninety-five percent of downbound grain movements to New Orleans arrive by barge, and there’s a “high correlation” with barge movement in St. Louis. About 1/7 of all center-Gulf grain and soybean cargo volumes move through St. Louis.
Asked about trends and outlooks for 2025, Eriksen acknowledged that the Trump administration’s trade war and frequent changes on tariff policies made data gathering challenging. Separately, the U.S. Trade Representative has also been proposing penalties on Chinese-built vessels, including a surcharge on all such vessels that visit U.S. ports, with exemptions for vessels of 80,000 dwt (dead weight tons) and smaller, although these have not been finalized and are still under debate.
Despite those tensions, Eriksen said, the 2025 marketing year may see the fifth largest grain and soybean export totals in history. Fertilizer movements on the rivers may be reduced, but “commodity associations are not resting,” he said. “Farmers are resilient!”
On the coal side, the Trump administration has been talking about reviving coal, although it’s unlikely that coal movements by barge will ever regain their former volume. There were 29 new barges added to the total in 2024, but with a slide downward on the number of open barges used for coal, sand and aggregate, Eriksen sees barge retirements looming over the next three to five years.
The tank barge fleet demand, on the other hand, is back at pre-pandemic levels. Steel prices remain high, and there are only two major barge-builders.
When Lamie asked about infrastructure investments, Eriksen pointed to the Inflation Reduction Act and the new 75-25 federal cost-share for locks and dams. There has also been a surge of private investment in the inland river system, Eriksen said, but grain storage build-out has stalled. This is at least partly due to the reluctance of some farmers to invest in new equipment due to higher costs. There has also been a build-out of crush plants to take advantage of low-carbon fuel standards and renewable diesel, which can be made from a variety of crops. Many of the new crush plants are within reach of the inland waterways of the United States. With livestock herds’ growth slow, he said, corn and soybean growers must look to export markets for soybean meal and to renewable fuels such as Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF).
