Farm exports have largely remained strong, despite the ongoing challenges in the supply chain. Transportation issues have remained problematic for many agricultural exports, with port congestion and a lack of trucking capacity delaying the movement of goods. North American Regional Head of RaboResearch Food and Agribusiness for RaboBank, Roland Fumasi said the industry has been resilient in getting goods to their destination. However, despite overcoming many of the challenges, there was still some unrealized potential for ag exports in 2021.
“I will say the ag industry has done a phenomenal job more generally. You look at our value of our ag exports overall this year, up 22 percent. But even the volume’s up seven percent,” said Fumasi. “I know there’s been a lot of challenges in the California ports. That has had a negative impact on the tree nut industry, as a perfect example. Seventy percent of our tree nuts are exported. But they’ve still kept a pretty decent pace and it makes you think about how robust and how strong those could have been if we had already had these logistical challenges fixed.”
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