AG Week

By Emily Beal

A shipping container shortage and supply chain issues caused by the pandemic made it difficult for many ag exporters to get their product overseas.

SB&B Foods ships food-grade soybeans and other grains to international markets and was hit hard by the lack of shipping containers. The company struggled to get products to customers on time.

"We shipped our last container of 2020 crop in February of this year, six months late. So you can understand the anxiety, the frustration, the fact that some of these southeast Asia companies have had to shut down because we couldn't get something to them, their product to them in a timely basis," said Bob Sinner, president of SB&B Foods of Cassleton, North Dakota.

President Joe Biden recently signed the Ocean Shipping Reform Act. The bill is intended to help ease supply chain issues and container shipping bottlenecks. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., acted as a driving force to get the bill passed.

"So what the bill says is, if American farmers and manufacturers have things to ship out and they're waiting at the ports, you gotta take those things, you can't just export air," she said while in Fargo for the Midwest Agriculture Summit.

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