b'8American Journal ofTransportation ajot.comFederation,whilethemostumes at the scale of U.S. pro-recent Consumer Price Indexducers. So, the pricing goes report for food consumed atup,hesaid.Thedelivery home reveals a 12% increasecost is skyrocketing because over the past year. youcantgettheproduct Othercontributingfac- down the river, and alterna-tors to increased [food] coststive transportation modes and include supply chain disrup- portroutingsarenotavail-tions and the war in Ukraine,able in many cases. Cryan added.Allofwhichraisesthe In most cases, accordingquestionofwhenthesitua-to Friedmann, buyers of U.S.tion on the Mississippi River agricultural exports are hardwillnormalize.Friedmanns pressedtofindalternative(STUCKcontinued on sources that can supply vol- page 12)(STUCKcontinued fromtrucks sitting around nor hun-page 6) dredsofthousandsofextra the United States Departmenttruckdriverssittingaround, of Agriculture. U.S. agricul- able to carry that cargo.turalexportsforthefiscalThe Mississippi River sit-yearbeginninginOctoberuation contributes yet another 2022wereprojectedtobecomponenttotheglobal $190.0 billion in November,inflation in food commodity down$3.5billionfromtheprices. General inflation has departmentsAugustfore- beenrunning7%to9%in cast.Thisdecreaseispri- recent months, noted Roger marilydrivenbyreductionsCryan,chiefeconomistat in soybeans, cotton, and corntheAmericanFarmBureau exports, said a USDA report. Projectedfiscalyear 2023U.S.oilseedsexports were down $2.3 billion from Augustto$44.3billionin November and down $1.4 bil-lion from the previous year. Valuesaredownalmost entirelyona$2.4-billion reduction in soybeans, said theUSDAreport.Projected agriculturalimports,mean-while, were increased by $2 billionfromAugust,thanks to a strong dollar, which also provides a headwind to the export forecast.t ransportatIonC onundrumRail transportation, which couldpotentiallycarrylarge volumesofagriculturalcom-modities, doesnt present much ofanalternativeforshippers along the Mississippi, because optionsdowntheGulf,are constrained,notedtheUni-versity of Illinois report, and come at a higher cost. In addi-tion,explainedPeterFried-mann,executivedirectorof the Agriculture Transportation Coalition (AgTC), the barges and our river system go north to south, and most of our rail-roads go east and west, so there is not a simple replacement of rail for barge. That point was drivenhomebytheIllinois report,whichnotedthatsoy-beanpricesareholdingup betterintheDakotas,which has better access to the Pacific Northwestexportroutes. InlandareasofKansasand Nebraska and Eastern produc-tion areas of the United States are also faring better because they do not rely upon the Mis-sissippi River. Nor do trucks provide a realistic alternative for deliv-eringsoybeanstoseaports. One barge holds the equiv-alentcargoof138trucks, saidFriedmann.Thereare thousandsofbargessitting on the bottom of the river, not moving. We do not have hun-dredsofthousandsofextra'