The agricultural industry relies on the U.S. inland waterways navigation system to ship grains from production States to domestic destinations and export markets. Via the Mississippi River System, barges deliver roughly 90 percent of the grain exported from the Mississippi Gulf port region. USDA collects the following two datasets on barged grain volumes from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: Lock Performance Monitoring System (LPMS) and Waterborne Commerce Statistics (WCS) data. USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) also collects and reports barge freight rates every week. This dashboard collates a variety of important barge performance indices that will be updated as new data is available based on WCS and LPMS data. Each visualization provides a link to its underlying processed data. Another hyperlink from the processed data allows users the access to the raw datasets.

This chart shows the latest weekly barge tariff rates at selected locations. Use filters to change date range and location.

This line chart shows monthly average downbound barge rates, providing a sense of longer term trends. Rates are averaged by month. Use the filters to change the locations included in the average, or to show different date ranges.

This line chart shows weekly downbound grain barge rates, averaged by week, and broken out by years, providing a comparison of rates to the same time in previous years. Use the filters to narrow down to specific locations or change the date range.

This line chart shows downbound grain barge rates by location. Use the filters to change the date range or locations.

This chart shows the lastest weekly total tonnages of grain barge movements. Use the filters to select lock, commdoity, and date.