How much does exporting crops cost?
Potential yields differ across regions, sometimes drastically. What if we just grow crops where they grow best and ship them out to the rest of the world? (This isn't practical, of course, because putting farmers out of work, especially in developing countries which tend to have lower yields, is bad.)
Here are a bunch of ocean transportation costs from the US Agricultural Marketing Service's reports:
| Date | Source | Destination | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct24 | US Gulf | Japan | $55 |
| Oct24 | US Pacific Northwest | Japan | $30 |
| Oct24 | US Gulf | China | $62 |
| Aug24 | Brazil | China | $45 |
| Jul24 | Ukraine | Indonesia | $55 |
| Jul24 | Ukraine | China | $50 |
| May24 | US Gulf | Colombia | $30 |
| Apr24 | US Gulf | Japan | $70 |
| Dec23 | US Pacific Northwest | Thailand | $23 |
| Nov23 | US Pacific Northwest | China | $30 |
| Nov22 | US Gulf | Japan | $80 |
| Aug22 | US Gulf | China | $70 |
So prices fluctuate but that's probably a demand issue and we can build more ships. The lower end for US to China is like $30-50 per ton. US to China is a pretty long journey, so I'd expect that to be near the higher end of ocean transportation costs.
How expensive is producing these crops and getting them to their origin ports? The International Grains Council says the cheapest staple crops are $200/ton:
- wheat: $250/ton
- maize: $210/ton
- rice: $500/ton
- barley: $200/ton
So the cost to transport crops can be 10-20% of the production cost. That's not too expensive.