NMPF, USDEC Praise Partnership to Ease Port Congestion in Northwest

Mar 21, 2022

The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) and the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) praised the launch today of a new partnership between the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Northwest Seaport Alliance (NWSA) aimed at easing port congestion and restoring more reliable shipping access for U.S. agricultural exporters.

The initiative builds on the Biden administration’s ongoing efforts to address the export supply chain crisis and USDA’s leadership in prioritizing the needs of agricultural exporters. USDA and NWSA will enhance access to a 49-acre “pop up” site in Seattle to provide staging ground storage for both dry and refrigerated containerized agricultural exports to facilitate their quick loading onto shipping vessels destined for overseas markets.

A similar “pop-up” site was launched at the Port of Oakland on March 1 and has helped improve conditions at that port. USDA and NWSA are announcing the partnership today in an event featuring Stan Ryan, president and CEO of Darigold, an NMPF and USDEC member cooperative and a driving force behind the supply chain improvement.

“Dairy farmers and manufacturers celebrate today’s great news of an additional ‘pop-up’ site focused on helping to deliver relief for U.S. agricultural exporters grappling with severe supply chain challenges. This will provide meaningful assistance in getting their high-quality products to overseas customers. We appreciate Secretary Vilsack’s focus on continuing to find additional ways to tackle this concern,” said Krysta Harden, president and CEO of USDEC. “This is an important new tool as the Biden administration and Congress work together to find multiple pathways to address this complex issue, including passage of the Ocean Shipping Reform Act.”

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Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

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