"CHICAGO - All barge traffic will be halted across a wide swath of the Upper Mississippi River for weeks, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Thursday, as record winter snowfall in the upper Midwest is now melting and flooding into waterways.

The closures will force grain and fertilizer shippers to find alternative, potentially more costly, transportation by truck or rail, freight experts said.

Such floods have become part of a volatile cycle for the U.S. waterway, a major transportation artery moving some 60% of American grain exports from the heartland to the global market via the Gulf Coast."

P.J. Huffstutter reports for Reuters April 27, 2023. [2]