Quetica’s Dr. Weiwen Xie presented findings from recent research conducted in Midwestern States on the true origin of agriculture exports reported in FHWA’s FAF database. During a podium session titled: Agriculture Commodity Data: Challenges & Applications, Dr. Xie showed that FAF export data indicates that states like Texas, Louisiana and Washington were the largest export states for soybeans and corn. However, data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that states like Illinois and Iowa are the true origin of most U.S. corn and soybean exports.
FAF export statistics are drawn from “shipper declaration” documents reported to U.S. Customs. Often when commodities like corn and soybeans move by rail to a coastal port, the declaration lists the state where goods are transloaded from rail to ship. Dr. Xie and his team used a wide variety of external data sources to develop more accurate information on true export origins, as well as true import destinations. Dr. Xie said, “For a state like Iowa, the adjustment resulted in approximately 12 million tons and $1.3 billion worth of exports being reassigned back to the state.”
Quetica’s Mark Berndt served as a presiding officer at TRB for the session titled: Overcoming Agriculture Commodity Flow Data Challenges in Freight Optimization.
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