End of an era and a new beginning for International Ag Shipping Terminal

Mar 31, 2023

Ports of Indiana, a state-owned port authority, is on the lookout for a new operator for its International Ag Shipping Terminal at Burns Harbor. The terminal, which has been operated by Cargill for 44 years, can handle various modes of transportation, including ocean vessels, 1,000-foot lake vessels, barges, and unit trains. It has a storage capacity of 7.2 million bushels and a loading capacity of 90,000 bushels per hour. Cargill announced that it is leaving the terminal as it changes its business model in the region.

Ports of Indiana will take over the facility on June 1 and is looking for a long-term partner to help grow shipments at the port. The port authority is seeking qualifications from companies interested in operating the terminal and will issue a formal request for proposals in May to all qualified companies. The deadline for responses to the request for qualifications is April 21.

The Burns Harbor port, which opened in 1970, is home to over 30 companies and handles around 3 million tons of cargo per year. The port is currently undergoing a $32 million facilities expansion, funded by two federal grants, which includes the construction of new terminals, rail yards, a bulk warehouse, and a truck marshalling yard. The port complex contributes $5.2 billion per year to the Indiana economy and supports over 30,000 jobs.

The departure of Cargill from the International Ag Shipping Terminal marks the end of an era, but also presents a unique opportunity for the facility to expand its capabilities and reimagine its operations. The port's director, Ryan McCoy, is excited about the next chapter for the terminal and has received multiple inquiries from companies interested in operating the facility. The deep-water terminal has tremendous capabilities for shipping grain, DDGs, and bulk cargoes to and from ocean vessels at the Heartland of America.

Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”