TL;DR
US agricultural exporters are facing a dangerous convergence of container shortages, carrier schedule volatility, rail delays, and opaque surcharge practices — and the infrastructure holding them together was never designed for this level of disruption. The real problem isn't the Middle East conflict or any single carrier. It's that ag exporters are being asked to commit to export windows that haven't formed yet, inside a system that has quietly degraded its ability to forecast, communicate, and absorb shocks. Teams that recognize this structural exposure now will be better positioned than those waiting for conditions to stabilize.
Every time a major geopolitical event disrupts ocean shipping, the instinct is to treat it as an external shock — a temporary stress that will pass. But listening to what US agricultural exporters said at the Ag TC conference in Tacoma this month, a different picture emerges: the disruption isn't being absorbed by the system. It's accelerating the system's decay.
"The system that has carried us this far is starting to show some wear and tear," said Ken O'Brien of the Gemini Shippers Association. That statement deserves more weight than it's getting. Because it doesn't describe a crisis caused by the Middle East conflict. It describes a structural vulnerability that was always present — the war simply made it impossible to ignore.
Agricultural exporters face a structural asymmetry that most other shippers don't. Their goods are grown in the interior of the country— sometimes hundreds of miles from the nearest container port. Securing empty equipment, coordinating rail moves, and meeting marine terminal cut-offs requires committing to an export window weeks in advance.
The problem? As Vijay Harrell, CEO of Trade lanes, put it: "They're committing to an export window that hasn't formed."
That phrase is worth unpacking. It means ag exporters are making irreversible logistics commitments — booking containers, scheduling rail, coordinating with inland facilities — based on carrier schedules that are subject to change without meaningful notice. When carriers alter vessel schedules due to Middle East routing changes or capacity optimization, the downstream cascade hits ag shippers particularly hard: their goods are perishable in nature or price-sensitive by timing, their inland locations reduce their ability to pivot, and their contracted windows allow little room for recovery.
The margin for error is thin. The current environment is widening the gap.
One of the more under appreciated risks surfacing from recent shipper testimony is the surcharge problem — and it's not just a cost issue, it's a billing integrity issue.
Rapidly changing fuel costs tied to Middle East rerouting have led carriers to implement surcharges that vary carrier-by-carrier, sometimes outside published tariffs, and often without adequate advance communication. Cynthia Tathwell of Columbia Grain described what she called "unjustified rises in rates and billing practices outside of published tariffs" — and characterized it as "a pattern across the industry."
For procurement and supply chain finance teams, this creates a compounding problem. Each billing dispute consumes time and resources on both sides. At scale, across multiple carriers and shipment lanes, the cumulative cost of managing these disputes — not just the surcharges themselves — becomes material.
Smart teams should be auditing their carrier invoices now, comparing billed surcharges against published tariff schedules, and documenting discrepancies systematically. The Federal Maritime Commission has signaled it is watching this space closely, with Chairman Laura DiBella explicitly stating the agency will take an aggressive stance on unfair detention, demurrage, and surcharge practices. That regulatory attention is an asset for shippers — but only for those who have organized their documentation.
Detention and demurrage charges remain a persistent operational and financial risk for ag exporters — and the current environment makes them harder to avoid and easier to dispute.
Schedule volatility means containers arrive late, vessels cut early, and terminal windows shift. When those changes aren't communicated clearly — and shipper testimony suggests they often aren't — ag exporters face charges for outcomes they didn't control. The FMC's renewed focus on this area is a signal, not a solution. Shippers still need their own systems: documented proof of when containers were returned or available, timestamps on carrier communications, and a clear paper trail for any dispute.
Multiple voices at Ag TC pointed to communication breakdown as a core failure. Irina Brown of Dunavant Global Logistics Group said managing disruptions requires timely carrier responses — and that over the past year, responses have been slow, incomplete, or incoherent.
This isn't simply poor customer service. It reflects a structural mismatch: carriers managing large vessel networks across volatile routes simply cannot provide the granular, real-time updates that interior-based ag shippers need to protect their logistics sequences. As Hapag-Lloyd's PJ McGrath acknowledged, distributing services across multiple gateways is inherently harder to manage than concentrating them through a few major ports.
The implication for shippers is that relying on carrier-provided visibility as the primary source of operational planning is a structural risk. Teams need independent visibility tools, pre-agreed contingency windows, and documented escalation paths before disruption happens — not after.
This isn't a moment to wait for conditions to improve. The structural issues described at Ag TC aren't new — they've been building for years. What has changed is that geopolitical routing disruption has removed the buffers that used to absorb them.
Review your surcharge audit process. Can your team identify billing outside published tariffs within 30 days of invoice? If not, you're likely absorbing charges you could successfully dispute.
Map your detention and demurrage exposure. For every lane where your cargo moves inland before reaching a port, document the sequence, the timing, and the carrier's stated obligations. The FMC's increased enforcement posture is useful only if you have evidence.
Pressure-test your export windows. If your current carrier relationships require committing to schedules three or more weeks ahead, ask what the notification protocol is when those schedules change. If the answer is unclear, that's a gap to close now.
Diversify your visibility inputs. Carrier schedules alone are no longer a reliable planning foundation. Real-time tracking, inland partner coordination, and independent port monitoring give you the lead time to respond rather than react.
Open the demand forecasting conversation. The observation from O'Brien — that "both carriers and customers have to do a better job of forecasting demand" — is one of the few two-sided admissions to come out of recent industry dialogue. Shippers who are willing to share demand visibility with their carrier partners are better positioned to negotiate service commitments in return.
What's happening to US ag exporters right now is a concentrated version of a broader structural tension: global trade infrastructure was built for predictability, and the last several years have systematically removed it. Pandemic-era demand swings, port bottlenecks, geopolitical rerouting, and carrier alliance restructuring have each applied stress to systems that have little elasticity left.
Agricultural exporters are particularly exposed because their supply chains are long, their goods are time-sensitive, and their operating geography keeps them far from the ports where leverage is concentrated.
But the operational lessons — better documentation, independent visibility, proactive communication frameworks, and surcharge audit discipline — apply well beyond agriculture. Any shipper with inland origins, multi-modal routing dependencies, or high exposure to carrier-imposed surcharges should be looking at their own playbook right now.
The wear and tear is real. The question is whether you know exactly where your system is weakest.
Source:https://www.joc.com/article/us-ag-shippers-navigate-creaky-supply-chain-not-built-for-modern-disruption-6225905
