AFBF Takes A Look At How Supply Chain Disruptions Have Impacted Farmers, Ranchers

Delays in the shipping industry have a direct impact to the bottom line of farmers and ranchers nationwide. American Farm Bureau Federation Associate Economist Danny Munch says the issue started when consumer purchasing habits changed.

“During COVID, we kind of saw this switch in consumer purchasing behavior from buying services, going out, to a lot of goods purchasing, so e-commerce. Now, when that happens, there's much more demand for products that come in containers and on barges, which puts a lot more pressure on our ports. And our ports are infrastructurally limited—by the number of cranes, by the number of workers, so forth—in their ability to process these new shipments. So, the more imports that you have, the more stress there's going to be on those ports.”

He said that’s led to congestion at U.S. ports with backlogged shipments. And labor issues, with a lack of dock workers, truck drivers and more made a bad situation worse. Munch added farmers and ranchers are feeling the impact of the supply chain disruptions in a variety of ways.

“If you have any sort of supply chain disruption, you're going to see increased prices for inputs. So, farmers have already started to see massive increases in prices for their inputs. All of these ports are vital to farmers who use foreign outlets as a place to market their goods. So, any change in the ability to access containers impacts farmers’ bottom lines.”

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