优先考虑农业运输改进

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Washington State University teamed up at FreightWeek STL to present the findings from recent research efforts aimed at modeling the prioritizing of agriculture transportation infrastructure improvements that support specific export supply-chains to increase exports, in this case soybeans and soybean products.

The research, sponsored by the USDA, aims to identify a modeling approach that could be used to prioritize national, regional and local transportation infrastructure investments that increase market access to the global soybean market. The session featured robust discussion with attendees, who included transportation stakeholders and representatives from the commodities sector, economic development agencies and other interested stakeholders.

Moderator and presenter Eric L. Jessup, associate professor, Washington State University School of Economic Sciences, began the session by noting their research project and modeling approach hopes to answer the question of how the U.S. should invest in its freight infrastructure to remain competitive in the global market place, and he presented a series of statistics that illustrate just how important investment in our nation’s infrastructure is becoming. Among those statistics: 32% of major roads are in poor or mediocre condition; 42% of major urban highways are congested, and 11% (one in nine) of the nation’s bridges are structurally deficient.

Jessup说：“尽管有明显的需求，但与1980年代中期相比，我们目前在改善基础设施方面的实际花费少10％。”“巴西和阿根廷在增强其基础设施方面的投资更加大量投资，并继续占据全球大豆出口市场的更大比例。”

这种大豆出口的模型将与其他领域的类似研究的发现相结合，查看树坚果，小麦和肉鸡的供应链（幼鸡），并将在华盛顿特区的AG峰会上提出合并的发现。7月26日。

During the workshop, Jessup also called attention to theonline Freight Data Warehousethat Washington State University has created and made available to the public.