Trouble at Old River: The Impact of a Mississippi River Avulsion on U.S. Soybean Exports

Abstract

The Mississippi River transportation system provides relatively low transportation costs for bulk commodities, enhancing U.S. competitiveness in the world soybean market. The Mississippi River’s urgency to change course and disrupt barge travel to the New Orleans Gulf Port Region puts this advantage in jeopardy. Using transportation costs of specific modes and routes to port of import destinations, we determine that a change in the river’s course would lead to an overall 27.27% increase in total costs of shipping soybeans to Shanghai, Rotterdam, and Veracruz.