ST. LOUIS, Mo. — The nation’s largest soybean group warns that farmers will lose millions of dollars in profits if the United States’ aging system of locks and dams isn’t soon improved.

Titled America’s Locks & Dams: A Ticking Time Bomb for Agriculture, the report was commissioned by the United Soybean Board (USB) and the soybean checkoff’s Global Opportunities (GO) program. It concludes if lock-and-dam breakdowns occur, farmers and consumers “will suffer severe economic distress.”

According to the report, more than half of the country’s inland water structures for barge shipping are more than 50 years old, and another one-third are more than 70 years old.

Laura Foell, a soybean farmer from Schaller, Iowa, is chair of the GO panel.

“The GO committee invested in this study to calculate the impact of the worsening condition of the lock-and-dam system and what the impact would be on the rail and highway system if those locks failed,” Foell said. “It is important for all in the industry and in the public sector to have the information necessary to make informed decisions when it comes to investing in our locks and dams.”

The USB report comes on the heels of last fall’s study commissioned by the National Corn Growers Assoc., which also concluded the country’s locks and dams are in dire need of repair. “Sixty percent of all grain exported by the U.S. comes down the Mississippi River to the Port of New Orleans and makes its way through the lock system on the upper Mississippi and Illinois rivers,” said Rod Snyder, the NCGA director of public policy.

“On the upper Mississippi and Illinois rivers there are 600-foot lock chambers that are about half the size of what a modern tow needs. They often have to separate (the barges) and reconnect them on the other end of the lock. You lose several hours of time during that process.”

The USB study cited loss of time as significant. Along the Ohio River alone, shipping delays caused by broken systems have tripled since 2000, from 25,000 to 80,000 hours annually.

A three-month lock closure would boost the cost of shipping 5.5 million tons, the average of all barges during the same period, by about $71.6 million, according to the study. Lost revenue to farmers could total $45 million with just one lock failure.

The study was conducted by the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University; it examined locks on the Upper Mississippi, Illinois and Ohio rivers.

President Obama included lock-and-dam improvements in last fall’s America’s Jobs Act, which failed to win approval from Congress. Other measures in recent years haven’t won majorities on how to pay for the improvements.

Following Obama’s State of the Union address last month, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack said the president remains committed to improved transportation systems to move ag products more quickly to global markets.

“He understands if we’re going to get back in the business of making and exporting and doubling our exports, we’ve got to be efficient and get more product to market quicker than the competitor, and less expensively,” Vilsack said.

“That requires a commitment, and when he’s talking about taking half of what we’re currently paying for these wars, which is a fairly significant amount of money, and redirecting it into infrastructure, he’s talking about the whole gamut – everything from transmission lines to locks, to dams, to airports, to bridges, to roads.”