Generally, most of imports from Asia enter the United States at Western ports. Long Beach, Calif., is cited as the busiest U.S. port.

However, there is some concern that ports, such as Long Beach, are starting to reach capacity.

However, there might be excess capacity in some of the ports, such as Houston and Galveston, New Orleans and Savannah, Ga., in the South and East.

Burrack believes the expansion of the Panama Canal will increase activity at New Orleans. As larger ships with more containers arrive in New Orleans, this also means there might be discounted rates to ship things back.

“That is why we are using it because it is cheap,” he says.

He says one estimate is 60 percent of the containers that bring goods to the United States are returned empty.

That has led to an opportunity for some.

For example, Honda was shipping auto parts in containers to one of its factories in Ohio. To maximize profit, they would ship food-grade soybeans back to Asia in the same containers, says Dennis Strayer, a consultant in Hudson.

That led to the opportunity for some farmers around the Honda plant in Ohio to raise crops for a premium market.

At the moment, Strayer says shipping via container is economical when shipping premium ag products or smaller amounts of products.

There are various groups or people who did or are shipping food-grade grain to Asia using containers throughout the Midwest, he says.

Strayer says the floor of a shipping container is wood. Therefore, a food-grade container is steam cleaned on the inside to remove any potential insects or other pathogens that would affect the product.

He says the cost of a food-grade container is the same as a nonfood-grade container. Then, a plastic is placed inside the container before the product enters.

Using containers allows for other options than cost, such as identity preservation.

When the container is loaded, it is sealed to prevent commingling of products.

Once the containers are sealed, they can be shipped without being opened until they reach their destination.

With the increased use of container shipping, the infrastructure might need to change as well.

There are signs of the changing infrastructure to handle more shipping containers including the expansion of the Panama Canal and a surge in ship building.

“There are more container ships being built,” Strayer notes.

“If the demand is there, the infrastructure will come,” says Burrack.

Various reports from Iowa farmers touring Asia have reported importers in those countries are starting to build facilities to handle imports in shipping containers.

Burrack, who recently attended the U.S. Grains Council meeting in Toronto, heard the director of the port authority there talk about ways to modernize the Saint Lawrence Seaway.

Modernization of the seaway could include utilizing more containers and computers to handle shipments than the warehouse system that is in place.

The change in shipping could have some political ramifications as well.

Burrack says since the Panama Canal might become more important in the shipping process, it might be in the best interest to keep Panama in good standing with the United States.

For example, Congress passing the Panama Free Trade Agreement could help, he says.

While companies involved in the shipping industry are watching the increase in container use, it might be awhile before shipping containers make it to Midwest farms.

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