LOS ANGELES, CA – Just because a shopping mall says it’s open 24 hours, doesn’t mean the stores inside are open round the clock and with that analogy, Jane Wells with CNBC explains, the private terminal operators at the West Coast Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach seem to hold a hand of spades in the current supply chain bottleneck in the United States.
Of course, the world’s ocean freight network remains strained from a slate of market failures linked to shifts in consumer behavior and a global economy shut down last year due to the coronavirus pandemic says Daniel Munch, an Associate Economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF).
Back in June, conditions at the nation’s two largest ports in Southern California revealed risks to a significant portion of U.S. agricultural exports.
Average monthly container rates are already 18 percent higher in Los Angeles and 17 percent stronger in Long Beach all while the average waiting time to dock and unload is now almost double the waiting time one year ago (6 days) with more than 30 ships waiting to enter the harbor.
USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service tracks average ocean freight rates for 20 and 40-foot containers moving from Los Angeles to Shanghai, China. Average rates between the third quarter of 2020 and the third quarter of 2021 nearly doubled (92 percent increase), going from around $800 to almost $1500 a container.
(SOURCE: All Ag News)
