The Mississippi River is experiencing low water levels this fall, driving up grain transportation prices for farmers in the Midwest.
It's the third year in a row that drought has impacted the river.
The Mississippi is a key transportation artery for U.S. farmers — 60% of all grain exported from the U.S. is shipped on the river.
“I like to frame it as our third coast,” said Jim Tarmann, managing director of the Illinois Corn Growers Association. “It is vital for us in competing globally.”
When water levels are low, barges can’t carry as much grain, because they could run aground in the shallower water. There are also navigation issues as the lower water levels lead to a more narrow channel.
Right now, low water levels are causing reduced tow sizes and reduced tons of goods per barge, plus a slow down of up to two days, according to the American Commercial Barge Line.
That means shipping costs go up. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a recent report that the cost of shipping corn and soybeans from the Mississippi through the Gulf of Mexico has increased by more than a third compared to last year.
Farmers ultimately pay the price, Tarmann said.
“At the end of the day that all comes back and is pretty much laid at the producer's feet,” Tarmann said. “It's going to cost him.”
Dry conditions throughout the Mississippi River Basin are driving the low river levels. Parts of the Ohio River Basin are experiencing their worst drought on record, said Anna Wolverton, a meteorologist for the Army Corps of Engineers Mississippi Valley Division.
Most of the water in the lower Mississippi comes from the Ohio, so that is driving the low water levels, but the Missouri River Basin and the Upper Mississippi are also dry.
“Since August 1, this is the driest they've been since 1976,” Wolverton said. “So going on 50 years, these areas haven't seen this kind of dryness.”
The Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for maintaining a 9 foot wide, 300 foot deep channel on the river for transportation. During dry times like these, the corps dredges problem areas of the river to create a deeper channel.
In 2022 and 2023, Mississippi river levels broke record lows near Memphis, said Brad Rippey, a meteorologist with the USDA. So far this year hasn’t reached record-breaking levels.
While late summer and early fall are typically dry in this part of the country, Rippey said the low water levels three years running stand out.
“It's unusual to see three years back to back to back, where we see near record low levels, or as we saw in Memphis last year, record-setting low river levels.”
There are longer-term trends affecting water levels on the Mississippi. Climate change is making rainfall come in shorter, heavier bursts, with rainfall that runs off instead of soaking into the ground.
“With the climate change, you go both ways,” Rippey said. “Higher highs on the river levels, lower lows. And of course, those highs are complicated by management of the waterways, as well.”
Efforts to control the river and protect communities from floods have come at a price, Rippey said, by increasing flow speeds on the Mississippi.
At this point, Tarmann says farmers are hoping for a simple solution.
“I don't want to oversimplify things, but it just needs to rain,” Tarmann said. “That's the bottom line. It just needs to rain.”
This story was produced in partnership with Harvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.
