Mississippi River Water Levels and shipping concerns

By Dale Minyo and Dusty Sonnenberg, CCA, Field Leader, a project of the Ohio Soybean Council and Soybean Check-off

The situation that occurred with water levels in the Mississippi River in 2020 and 2023 is playing out yet again in 2024. Low water levels due to a lack of rainfall in key areas is creating a shipping challenge for grain to move down the river. “Unfortunately, we’re seeing the situation kind of repeat itself,” said Mike Steenhoek, Executive Director of the Soy Transportation Coalition. “There has been a pretty significant retreat on drought conditions throughout much of the Midwest during the course of the year. For a lot of the year water levels on the Mississippi River were recharged and significantly higher than they were the last couple of years. Starting in July however, we saw a real scarcity of water channeling into the river. Now we’re seeing water level retreat as a result of that.… Continue reading