A month following the inaugural Northern Commodity Transportation Conference, a full recap of the highlights from the NCTC is now available online.

The “NCTC Run-Down: Covering All the Routes” online booklet features final thoughts from Ag Management Solutions CEO Tom Slunecka; takeaways from the two-day conference; action items; a “sticky wall report;” a list of sponsors and more. 

“Our mission was to pull together three states and three commodities to see how we can move the needle to improve our myriad of transportation issues and walk out with a list of items that we can work on as a region,” Slunecka said. “As many of our commodities follow similar transportation routes, it is important to bring our issues to the table to see where they overlap and what we are missing.”

This unique, first-of-its-kind conference united the entire commodity transportation industry to share and learn about trade barriers, struggles, similarities and opportunities along the transportation route as commodities leave combines in Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota and head for international waters. The fully-curated NCTC brought together diverse panelists, ensuring full coverage of every link in the ag transportation chain.

Dozens of state officials and experts from the agriculture industry made appearances at the NCTC, including longtime economic and marketing consultant John Baize; American Soybean Association President Bill Gordon; and Minnesota and North Dakota’s respective agriculture commissioners Thom Petersen and Doug Goehring. Staffers representing Sen. Mike Rounds (S.D.), Sen. John Thune (S.D.), Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Sen. Tina Smith (Minn.), and Rep. Angie Craig (Minn.), respectively, were also in attendance.

“As we found out, there are a lot of opportunities to improve our transportation systems,” Baize said. “The truth of this conference begins now when we take what we learned and start to make a difference across the entire ag transportation chain.”

The NCTC was conceived by Ag Management Solutions, which oversees operations of the Minnesota Soybean Research & Promotion Council, the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association and Speciality Soya & Grains Alliance, among other associations.

“By working together as a region on future projects, reports and plans, we can reduce barriers and costs and increase efficiencies,” Slunecka said. “The connections we made at the NCTC strengthen our ability to overcome these obstacles together.”

AMS has confirmed the NCTC will return in 2021. Visit https://www.graintransportation.com/resources for more information on the 2020 NCTC.