BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois’ transportation infrastructure consists of 145,708 miles of roadways, 6,986 miles of rail lines and 2,185 miles of interstate, giving farmers access to 77 shuttle facilities and 62 river elevators. How to best utilize and build on these assets to maintain and increase Illinois farmers’ competitive advantage is the impetus behind the Illinois Soybean Association’s (ISA) “Transportation 2050” initiative, revealed earlier this month.

“As Illinois produces more soybeans and global demand shifts, we’ll need to keep looking ahead and anticipating future needs. We’ll need to rethink our transportation system to maintain our competitive advantage,” said Todd Main, ISA director of market development. According to Main, the future for soybean exports could be a bright one with countries in Asia and Africa experiencing positive net population growth (as opposed to China, where the nation is anticipating years of declining net population growth). However, transportation issues related to infrastructure deficiencies and climate change could restrict the amount of soybeans farmers will be able to move out of the state without massive investments in transportation infrastructure improvement.

“Transportation (legislation and development) takes a long time and requires lots of planning. We want to make sure that all the things that make us competitive today are still going to be present if we are going to have something that works in 2050,” Main said.

Of concern to the ISA:

- Around one-fourth of all bridges in Illinois are either load-weight restricted or in such disrepair to not be usable for agricultural transportation.

- A number of 600-foot locks need to be expanded to 1,200 feet so they can handle modern tows. This would dramatically change the economics of the waterway, according to the ISA.

- Continued low water levels on the lower Mississippi River are causing reductions in the amount of soybeans that can be moved in each load, increasing delivery charges for farmers while restricting exports.

“Our climate variability is increasing, so now we are into our second or third year out of the last six or seven when water levels were problematic, so that is important to understand. But, I think that rather than to focus on a particular mode of transportation it is more important to understand that we’ve got to have resiliency in the system and the network. If one mode goes down for whatever reason, we’ve got to have backup,” Main said.

That backup plan could include a renewed focus on building out infrastructure toward Great Lakes ports, including Cleveland, Ohio, where high-speed international vessels transport soybeans overseas. “Or maybe we build out rail to the east coast,” Main speculated, adding that additional or expanding markets for soybeans in parts of Europe and, possibly, the Middle East could be accessed through these ports. “We want to think about where our markets are going to be,” he said.

Soybeans and corn are anticipated to produce upward of 50 to 60 percent more yield in the coming decades due to advances in hybrid technologies, adding extra urgency to ISA’s transportation concerns. Wasting no time, the ISA office is reaching out to farmers, agribusinesses, commodity group representatives and their own board members across the nine state crop reporting districts to identify future agricultural infrastructure needs in all areas of Illinois.

“We want to engage people at the local level to identify which districts serve what markets, and what they need as far as infrastructure assets that will support them,” Main said. “There will be key differences. Some areas of the state might need more storage. Other areas might need a multimodal facility with railroad access.”

Main noted that some of the largest export growth over the next 50 to 60 years will likely be in Africa, where Illinois farmers currently ship a “very limited” volume of soybeans. “Very little goes to Sub-Saharan Africa, and we’ve got to have a system that enables us to (increase exports). Strong demand also is expected to continue in Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia, to name just a few buyer hubs,” he said. Findings of the ISA’s Transportation 2050 initiative will likely be used as an outline for capital funding and legislative appropriation requests for fiscal year 2028, according to Main.