AGP Ship Loading Expansion a Win for Soybean Markets

There’s more to exports than Midwesterners can imagine. A dozen South Dakota farmers, given the opportunity to see firsthand how their soybeans are exported, came away from the experience with enlightenment about how their crop gets to foreign customers. Interviewed while on a tour bus, long-time Sisseton, South Dakota farmer Connie Piotter told the South Dakota Soybean Network she applied to be part of the tour out of curiosity about the status of her soybeans once they’re no longer in her hands.

“I was interested in what happened to our commodity when the elevator bought it,” she said. “Where did it go? How did it get there? I was amazed at all the steps in sending grain on the way to foreign countries. It was amazing that all the barriers that had to be overcome and all the protection that we have as Americans.”

Aboard the same bus after departing the Port of Greys Harbor, Washington, Paul Van Gerpen of Avon, South Dakota, expressed surprise about the volume of value added soybeans leaving the state westbound via rail.

“The tour has been really interesting so far, seeing the facilities that export soybean meal and actually finding out the amount of soybean meal that really gets produced in South Dakota and exported,” said Van Gerpen, occasionally glancing at the Columbia River to the left of our route on US Highway 30. “It shows that AGP is making a big investment and trying to get a larger export market and being able to do it more efficiently and improve stuff for the South Dakota farmers.”

There’s more about South Dakota Soybean’s July See For Yourself tour on an upcoming edition of the Soybean Pod, brought to you by South Dakota soybean farmers and their checkoff.

Referring to AGP’s massive loadout facility, set to open on July 31^st, South Dakota Soybean Association board member Ross Tschetter of Bridgewater, South Dakota, agreed that AGP’s infrastructure enhancement – essentially doubling the grain processing company’s ship loading capacity – is good for South Dakota growers.

“It's already an impressive facility, but their upcoming addition is going to be absolutely a world-class meal loadout facility, serviced primarily by rail lines that come from our part of the country,” said Tschetter, during the tour of AGP’s new Terminal 4. “I feel like that gives South Dakota soybean producers and farmers a really great outlet for our products.”

What impressed Tschetter the most was to look at the massive loading machinery and picture value-added soybean meal from South Dakota passing through AGP’s facilities for a twenty-one-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. “It's going to go on boats to Asia and other places, and that's really a benefit to our markets.”