LANSING – As agriculture continues to expand in Michigan, the state needs to expand its infrastructure capabilities to help move the products to markets, the head of the Michigan Agri-Business Association said at forum, and that means improving rail and water transportation along with the roads.
Jim Byrum, president of the association, said those improvements could mean statutory changes as well. For example, virtually no commodities are shipped out of Michigan by freighter because ballast water requirements discourage ships from coming into state ports empty.
All other Great Lakes states and Canada allow shippers to discharge ballast water needed to keep an empty vessel righted, he said, but to guard against invasive species Michigan will not. Byrum said he understood the reasoning, but if invasive species are discharged in other Great Lakes ports, they will still get to Michigan waters.
Agriculture is growing at a rapid pace in Michigan, and much of the growth is in northern counties that have not had traditional crop growth in the past, he said at the forum sponsored by the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University. Those areas will need logistical help through transport to move their products to markets.
But the state has seen cutbacks over the years on major railroads, and many market areas require the use of short-line systems. If the state does not see rail line capacity improve and expand, it could see more than 20,000 more trucks on the highways.
And those trucks, Byrum said, would stretch from Lansing to Saginaw and back, twice.
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