What’s old is new again at the Port of Duluth.

“You don’t see elevators like this anymore,” Darin Johnson, president of the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association (MSGA), said during a look inside the port’s Hansen-Mueller Terminal A. “This facility is helping to bring new life to the Port of Duluth. It’s pretty cool to see.”

On Aug. 13, a bus carrying more than 20 farmer leaders from MSGA and the Minnesota Soybean Research & Promotion Council (MSR&PC), along with MSR&PC CEO Tom Slunecka, traveled to the Hansen-Mueller Terminal A elevator and Duluth Cargo Connect on a fact-finding mission to learn more about the terminal, the port’s innerworkings and the potential of shipping soybeans through the terminal to markets including the U.K., Northern Europe, Northern Africa and Uzbekistan. The tour was part of MSR&PC and MSGA’s long-term efforts to underscore the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway System as a sustainable shipping option for trade partners.

MSR&PC is investing soy checkoff resources into promoting the port’s viability and examining how to import more goods into the Great Lakes. On the advocacy side, MSGA is urging state and federal policymakers to support the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway – the waterway connecting the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean – as a solution to diversifying markets for farmers.

“The end goal is to ship soybeans from here into countries like Uzbekistan,” MSR&PC Chair Tom Frisch said, “but we need products going both ways.”

Hansen-Mueller can export small grains, plus soybeans and meal from the U.S. and Canada to both domestic and international customers.

While walking through the elevator, MSR&PC Director Glen Groth imagined the possibilities.

“Getting our beans through here would be huge,” he said.

CHS and General Mills both support grain terminals across the bridge in Superior, Wisc. Kate Ferguson, director of trade and business development with the Duluth Seaway Port Authority, is optimistic about Hansen-Mueller’s potential and its willingness to handle throughput agreements — an arrangement to deliver a specified amount of product through a particular facility.

“We were missing a public-type facility,” she told farmer leaders. “The great thing about Hansen-Mueller is they’ll handle their own grain but will also take anyone’s grain on throughput. For us as the port, that’s helped us consider venturing into corn, soy and into other commodities that the port hasn’t handled in well over a decade.”

Though the port still ships about 1 million tons of grain annually – wheat and beet pulp pellets are usually the top exported commodities – iron ore is the most popular material exported from the Port of Duluth-Superior, which first opened for commercial shipping over 150 years ago and currently brings in about 900 vessels each year.

“Hansen-Mueller is the right match for us,” Ferguson said. “It’s part of our mission to help you, the farmers, take advantage of this port.”

While Minnesota Soybean officials most recently visited Hansen-Mueller in 2023 during a visit with Moroccan buyers, for many directors the tour was their first look at the throwback facility, which is the port’s oldest grain terminal.

“I love seeing these old elevators,” MSGA Director Brian Fruechte said. “These facilities aren’t fancy, but they’re built for the long haul.”

Standing nearly 200 feet above the bar, with a 28-foot slip depth (oceangoing ships can go through the port at 26.5-feet), the Hansen-Mueller facility can store 3.5 million bushels of grain. The site also supports nine legs and has a nearly 2,000-foot dock and on-dock rail service from BNSF Railway, which owns the land.

“We’ve come a long way and still have a long way to go,” said Sean Haasnoot, the terminal’s assistant superintendent. “But for an elevator that’s almost 120 years old, it works very well.”

The original wooden elevator was built in the 1890s; ceramic tile, brick and concrete were added in 1904. General Mills purchased the terminal in the 1940s, modernized it in the 1970s and maintained the facility before closing the elevator in 2015. It laid dormant until Hansen-Mueller renewed operations in 2022.

MSR&PC Director Corey Hanson, who farms in Norman County, remembers a time when growers in northwest Minnesota, including his father, often sent their commodities by rail to the port.

“It would be great to see this port really thrive for agriculture again,” he said. “These ports are very environmentally friendly and can help us find new routes for our beans.”

The trip to Duluth was held in conjunction with MSGA and MSR&PC’s August board meetings. During MSGA’s meeting, Rep. Paul Torkelson, a Watonwan County farmer who also serves on the multi-state Great Lakes Commission, spoke of the importance of taking advantage of the Great Lakes to diversify markets for agriculture.

“This port is an economic driver for Duluth and Minnesota, and there’s a lot of room for growth here as it relates to agriculture,” Rep. Torkelson said.

In September, MSR&PC and other interested stakeholders will travel to the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands to learn more about benefits of the Great Lakes compared to other trade lanes for imports and exports and underline the St. Lawrence Seaway System as an underused, sustainable resource.

“We’re really pulling for this port. It’s more important now than ever,” Slunecka said. “Our team is working hard to make the Port of Duluth really rock for agriculture.”