The National Milk Producers Federation and the U.S. Dairy Export Council welcome the USDA plan to offer additional support to agricultural exporters through the Commodity Container Assistance Program. The initiative will provide funding from the Farm Service Agency to exporters to reduce the costs of sourcing containers at the Oakland and Seattle-Tacoma “pop-up” port locations. “We’ve been asking for relief from these ocean shipping challenges for two years,” says NMPF president and CEO Jim Mulhern. “While we continue to seek solutions from carriers and Congress, these steps demonstrate USDA understands the challenges. This should offer immediate relief for exporters.” The pop-up sites are intended to offer off-terminal locations for empty container storage, increase access for agricultural shippers to use them, and free up port terminal space for freight operations. The FSA payments will help cover the costs of moving the containers between ports and pop-up yards, as well as storage at the pop-up sites.
