You may have heard that the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) finally passed in Congress this week and is now awaiting the signature of President Obama. And now you’re probably thinking, “Cool, Congress passed something. How does this affect me?”.

If you’re from the Midwest, you know we grow a lot of corn and soybeans. If you’re from anywhere else in the United States, you know the Midwest is full of corn, AKA- “corn country”. And you know from some of my previous posts that we cannot possibly consume all of the corn we grow in the Midwest, nor would we necessarily want to.

Most of the grain grown in the Midwest is harvest from the field and taken via grain truck, grain semi, or grain wagon to a holding facility, often a grain elevator in a nearby town that lots of farmers use or grain storage bins located on the farm. From here, if the grain elevator is not located along a railroad, the grain is trucked to another elevator that is located along a railway. The grain is loaded into rail cars and shipped via train to different locations around the country. In Illinois the grain is often shipped to a river, where it is loaded onto barges and shipped down to the mouth of the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge.  From there, the grain travels via ship to other countries that buy our grain. More than 1 billion bushels of corn is exported from the United States using this infrastructure.

So why is WRDA so important?

WRDA is a step in the right direction when it comes to improving locks and dams. Most of the locks and dams in the Midwest are located along the Illinois Waterway and the Mississippi River. Locks and dams are important to agriculture because they are a vital part of river transportation, raising and lowering barges and boats since waterways are not always at sea level. Without locks and dams, it would not be possible for barges to travel up and down the waterways. Most of these locks and dams were constructed during or before the Great Depression in the 1930s. As with anything, age takes a toll. Upgrades are now necessary to keep barges running at full capacity. This is why WRDA is important, although it is not going to solve the problem overnight. It will take years, decades even, before upgrades are started and completed to keep our waterways running efficiently. Without this, agricultural products will be stuck in the United States with nowhere to go since all of our other methods of transportation are already running at full capacity. Without action, this could even impact food getting to places it is needed. Fortunately, Congress was able to begin addressing this issue and succeeded in passing the bill.

If you’re wondering what a river lock is and how it works, check out this cool illustration (below) of one of the locks on the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal is not in the United States, but it is just as important to U.S. agriculture because it saves time for ships crossing from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean by being able to cut through Central America instead of traveling around South America.