For the past several weeks, I have written about the great potential of American agriculture. I have written about how billions of dollars are being invested to develop new technology to increase food production. I have written about how the advances being made in renewable production will help solve our energy issues in the future.

I have written how public policy is slowly realizing the need to increase food production and reduce burdensome regulations. I have discussed how higher prices have given producers the incentive they need to invest in the future. Now it is time to pop the balloon of optimism. There is one thing that will keep American agriculture from realizing its potential to feed and fuel the world: Market access.

This should not come as a shock. If you can’t get your products to the customers or you can’t get the customers to your product, nothing else matters. Agriculture is facing several market access issues on several different fronts, and not a lot of people are talking about it. That is because market access is not one of those issues about which people get passionate. You are not likely to see thousands of demonstrators descending on state capitols demanding better market access.

Market access is one of those concepts that economists talk about, but the media does not. Yet, without improvements in market access, some of the most serious and challenging problems facing our world will go unresolved.
Some of the barriers to market access are manmade, while others are man-caused. Manmade barriers are policies that restrict the movement of products to market. This most often comes in the form of trade restrictions that keep out certain food or feed products. Sometimes these are based on sound scientific data, most times they are not. Japan’s restrictions on U.S. beef and the EU’s restrictions on U.S. grain and soybeans are examples of manmade market access problems.

An example of a man-caused restriction is the current state of the river system in the Midwest. Years of inadequate funding have led to several key, lock-and-dam systems on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers being in danger. Despite his call for more exports, the President has not allocated any funding in the budget plans for repairs on the river system.

Not only is this a threat to getting our Midwestern products to market, it also represents a danger of getting some of our raw materials, such as fertilizer, from the world market to our farms.

Market access is not just an issue for food production. Our blossoming renewable fuels industry will wither if market access is not improved. Unlike oil and natural gas, there is no pipeline system that can move large amounts of ethanol from the Midwest to where it is blended with gasoline. Slow and costly rail and truck transport is currently the only method we have.

A combination of private and federal funding will be needed to tackle this issue. In the manmade category, challenges include the lack of renewable fuel pumps at retail stations and the small number of flex-fuel engines that use higher levels of ethanol.

Oil companies have been reluctant to share retail space with pumps that allow consumers to choose fuel with higher blends of ethanol. Carmakers have been more worried about engine warranties than about reducing our dependence on imported oil.

In other words, there are a lot of people who have a vested interest in not improving market access.

It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing was written by Duke Ellington in 1931 in an effort to establish swing as a legitimate form of jazz. The song has become a classic and marked the beginning of the swing era.

It is time our political and business leaders begin to recognize that “it don’t mean a thing” if we don’t have market access. Serious steps need to be taken to improve market access no matter if they are manmade policy restrictions or man-caused failing or nonexistent infrastructure.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Gary Truitt may write to him in care of this publication.